- Kick-off
- Venue
- Anfield, Liverpool
Liverpool win. Logged 17 Oct, 21:41 UTC, never edited.
What happened
Liverpool 4–3 Villarreal. We said Liverpool win 2–1: Right result, wrong score, 10 points.
- Villarreal led 2–0 inside half an hour: Georges Mikautadze scored on 4' and Sergi Cardona Bermúdez on 29', from Nathan-Dylan Saliba's pass. Alexis Mac Allister pulled one back on 36', from Konstantinos Tsimikas's pass, and Ronald Araujo levelled on 45+2', set up by Rio Ngumoha. Mac Allister scored again on 65', again from Ngumoha, and Florian Wirtz made it 4–2 on 68' from Cody Gakpo's pass. Tani Oluwaseyi got Villarreal's third on 87'. We said Alexander Isak v Juan Foyth; neither scored. Our call rested on Liverpool scoring and conceding: they did both, more than we expected.
- Liverpool had 53% of the ball, 22 shots to 14 and 7 on target to 5. What we got right: a Liverpool win, and Villarreal scoring. Where we were wrong: the score; we expected one Villarreal goal, they scored three, and Liverpool had to come from 2–0 down.
Before the match: our preview
In 30 seconds
- Liverpool have won both of their Champions League games, 2–1 against Atlético Madrid and 6–3 in Linz.
- Dominik Szoboszlai and Jeremie Frimpong both went off injured at Brentford, and Iraola expects to lose them for some time.
- Isak will score at Anfield, and his goal will be the difference.
The story
Andoni Iraola's Liverpool are fifth in the 36-team league phase on 6 points, after a 2–1 win at home to Atlético Madrid and a 6–3 win at LASK on Wed 14 Oct. The top eight skip the play-off round. Alexander Isak missed Linz with a thigh injury, came back at Brentford on Sat 17 Oct and scored the winner on 70 minutes, after Keane Lewis-Potter's header and Víctor Muñoz's equaliser. Brentford finished with nine men, and the win lifted Liverpool above Brentford in the Premier League.
The same afternoon cost Iraola two more players. Dominik Szoboszlai, back after missing the two games before, went off after 32 minutes with what Sky Sports called a recurrence of his hamstring problem; "it's not a new injury and was probably not healed enough," Iraola said. Jeremie Frimpong came on at half-time and lasted seven minutes. Iraola had already warned that Liverpool would "need to change again when we face Villarreal in another three days."
Iñigo Pérez, in his first season since he replaced Marcelino, brings Villarreal to Anfield 14th on 3 points. They lost 3–2 at Borussia Dortmund, then beat Napoli 3–1 on Tue 13 Oct for their first Champions League win of the season. On Sat 17 Oct they could not beat Elche: 0–0 at home, with Elche's goalkeeper Matías Dituro making five saves and an Alberto Moleiro goal ruled out for offside. Pérez had warned his players that a defeat would make the trip to Liverpool harder; they did not lose, but they did not score.
This decides it: Isak against Juan Foyth and Logan Costa. Villarreal concede in almost every game, and Isak scored the winner on his first start back. If Foyth keeps him quiet, Liverpool have to find goals from Florian Wirtz and Bradley Barcola with Szoboszlai gone.
Champions League 2026/27 explained: the format and the full league-phase table
Form
Four wins in five, and 12 goals; City are the only side to beat them in their last ten.
Three wins in five, after four defeats in a row before that.
The games, with scores
| Liverpool | 17 Oct | at BrentfordPL | W 2–1 |
| 14 Oct | at LASKCL | W 6–3 | |
| 11 Oct | v Manchester CityPL | L 0–3 | |
| 20 Sep | at BournemouthPL | W 1–0 | |
| 15 Sep | v TottenhamLC | W 3–1 | |
| Villarreal | 17 Oct | v ElcheLL | D 0–0 |
| 13 Oct | v NapoliCL | W 3–1 | |
| 10 Oct | at Real MadridLL | L 0–1 | |
| 20 Sep | v LevanteLL | W 3–1 | |
| 17 Sep | at MálagaLL | W 3–1 |
Latest first. Latest on the left. PL = Premier League, LC = League Cup, CL = Champions League, LL = La Liga. OddsIntel match database, read 17 Oct 2026.
Team news
Checked Sat 17 Oct 17:30 UTC: liverpoolfc.com (Iraola, 15 and 17 Oct; injury list) and Sky Sports for Liverpool; villarrealcf.es, LaLiga.com (the Elche match sheet) and EFE for Villarreal. Reported = not yet confirmed by the club. Line-ups: confirmed about an hour before kick-off; they go under Updates. We don't publish guessed XIs.
Isak started at Brentford and lasted until the 79th minute. Two Villarreal scorers missing from the last XI were on the bench, not injured: Georges Mikautadze, with three goals in their last ten, came on against Elche on 66 minutes, and Santiago Mouriño was unused. Both scored against Napoli, so expect one of them back at Anfield.
Villarreal 4-4-2 · v Elche, 17 Oct
- Gulácsi
- FreemanFoyth (key battle)CostaCardona
- AkhomachComesañaMaciáMoleiro
- Ayoze PérezOluwaseyi
- Isak (key battle)
- BarcolaWirtzMuñoz
- SzoboszlaiMac Allister
- Kerkezvan DijkJacquetAraújo
- Alisson
Liverpool 4-2-3-1 · at Brentford, 17 Oct
Both last XIs on a pitch
Villarreal 4-4-2 · v Elche, 17 Oct
- Gulácsi
- FreemanFoyth (key battle)CostaCardona
- AkhomachComesañaMaciáMoleiro
- Ayoze PérezOluwaseyi
- Isak (key battle)
- BarcolaWirtzMuñoz
- SzoboszlaiMac Allister
- Kerkezvan DijkJacquetAraújo
- Alisson
Liverpool 4-2-3-1 · at Brentford, 17 Oct
Who to watch
The duel to watch: Alexander Isak against Juan Foyth. Isak led the line at Brentford with Wirtz behind him. Foyth plays on the right of Villarreal's centre-back pair, and how often their full-backs push on decides how often he and Logan Costa are left alone with Isak.
Liverpool
Alexander Isak
Back from a thigh injury and straight into the goals again at Brentford.
- 5
- goals, Liverpool's last 10
Villarreal
Alberto Moleiro
Starts on the left of Pérez's 4-4-2, facing a Liverpool right side that has lost Frimpong.
- 2
- goals, Villarreal's last 10
Goals in each side's last ten games, all competitions. OddsIntel match database, read 17 Oct 2026.
Head-to-head
Liverpool won both two-legged ties: 3–1 on aggregate in the 2016 Europa League and 5–2 in the 2022 Champions League. Villarreal's only win was 1–0 at home in April 2016.
All 4 meetings
Every meeting we hold (4, back to 2016). Result for Liverpool. Every meeting we hold (4, back to 2016). OddsIntel match database, read 17 Oct 2026.
Numbers that matter
Goals scored, last ten: Liverpool 20, Villarreal 16 (higher is better)
Liverpool score more, and six of theirs came in one night in Linz.
Goals conceded, last ten · fewer is better: Liverpool 13, Villarreal 15 (lower is better)
Close: neither side is hard to score against.
Clean sheets, last ten: Liverpool 3, Villarreal 1 (higher is better)
Villarreal's only one was the 0–0 with Elche.
Last ten games each, all competitions, to 17 Oct. OddsIntel match database, read 17 Oct 2026.
Our call, explained
We have Liverpool winning 2–1. Isak is fit, Liverpool have scored in eight of their last ten, and Villarreal have won one of their five away games in that run, at Málaga. Liverpool will concede, though: they have let in a goal in seven of their last ten, and without Szoboszlai and Frimpong Iraola has to rebuild his midfield and his right side three days after Brentford. Villarreal also played on Sat 17 Oct.
Where this goes wrong. Liverpool have won two of their five home games in their last ten, and Moleiro against a reshuffled right side could take a point; a 2–2, like the ones against Newcastle and Nottingham Forest, is likelier than a Villarreal win. The other way, Villarreal have let in three goals twice in their last ten, and if Isak scores early this could be 3–1.
Updates
20 Oct, 23:43 CEST
Full time: Liverpool 4–3 Villarreal (Mac Allister 36', 65', Araujo 45+2', Wirtz 68'; Mikautadze 4', Cardona 29', Oluwaseyi 87'). Our 2–1 call: right result, wrong score. See What happened.
Next: nothing further; this match is finished.
Data note: results, scorers, the table and line-ups from our database, read 17 Oct 16:40 UTC, so the counts run to both sides' games of Sat 17 Oct. Neither side's last ten includes a friendly. Team news and match details from liverpoolfc.com, villarrealcf.es, LaLiga.com, Sky Sports, EFE, Castellón Plaza and El Gol Digital.
Our call was timestamped by an independent service before kick-off, Sat 17 Oct, 21:50 UTC.
How the timestamp works
Timestamped before kick-off by an independent service (DigiCert, RFC 3161), Sat 17 Oct, 21:50 UTC. The call file is the exact version that was timestamped. The file with our call and its timestamp token: call file · timestamp. Its fingerprint (sha256):
18c36924656d6883220351dd0f51eeeddebd2f5290f5dfecbc4b8b995e31f305
Our calls so far
- calls right
- 27/42
- home win every time
- 19/42