Liverpool erases 0-2 deficit to beat Villarreal 4-3 in Anfield thriller

Three minutes. That's all it took for Georges Mikautadze to silence Anfield with an angled strike from the left that snuck in at the far post. What followed was a wild back and forth that finished 4-3 for Liverpool, one of those matches where the final score barely begins to tell the story of what happened on the field.

Villarreal wasn't satisfied with just the opening blow. In the 28th minute, Sergi Cardona doubled the lead with a low left-footed finish after a well-worked counterattack, set up by a through ball from Nathan Saliba. On the road and up 0-2 at Anfield, in the Champions League. Liverpool, which had entered as the favorite according to the projection published before the match (62% win probability, compared to 17% for Villarreal), found itself on the ropes and far from what anyone had expected.

The response came before halftime. Alexis Mac Allister headed home a corner kick delivery from Kostas Tsimikas to make it 1-2 in the 35th minute. Then, in the final moment of first-half stoppage time, Ronald Araujo pounced from point-blank range to level things at two apiece right before the break, again with a header, again off a corner. Two set-piece goals in the span of a few minutes completely shifted the tone of the match.

The second-half surge

Liverpool came out sharper after the break and finished flipping the script with a decisive sequence. In the 64th minute, Mac Allister notched his brace with a close-range right-footed finish, assisted by Rio Ngumoha, making it 3-2. Three minutes later, Florian Wirtz, who had come on at halftime, finished with his left foot after a counterattack set up by Cody Gakpo to make it 4-2. In barely 21 minutes, the Anfield side had gone from trailing 0-2 to leading 4-2.

Villarreal still had some fight left in them: Tani Oluwaseyi, who had also entered at the half, pulled one back in the 86th minute with a low left-footed finish, assisted by Ayoze Perez, making it a final 4-3. Three minutes of stoppage time followed, but the result didn't change again.

What the numbers say

Liverpool was the better side across nearly every metric on the night, something the tight final score doesn't fully reflect.

Our expected goals estimate based on the match's shots backs up that dominance: Liverpool produced 2.453 xG against 1.751 for Villarreal. Those numbers confirm that the home side deserved more than the early scare it suffered, even if the final result stayed tight until the very end.

Before kickoff, our projection favored Liverpool, with 2.3 expected goals against 1.18 for Villarreal and a combined total of 3.48. The match ended with seven total goals, well above that figure, with Villarreal managing to go up by two goals before the home side completed the comeback.

What the result means in the standings

With this win, Liverpool reaches 9 points from 3 matches played, with 3 wins and a goal difference of plus-5, placing it in second position. Villarreal, meanwhile, sits on 3 points from 3 matches, with one win and two losses, and a goal difference of 0, in the Champions League league phase. The gap between the two sides in the standings stands at 6 points, a fitting reflection of a night in which Villarreal held the match in its hands for half an hour but couldn't hold on against Anfield's response.