Emery holds his hands up over Emi's costly howler

UNAI Emery took responsibility for the mistake Emi Martinez made at Anfield in Aston Villa’s 2-0 defeat against Liverpool.

- By JOHN TOWNLEY

Martinez looks dejected after his mistake led to Liverpool's first goal

Villa hit the post in the sixth minute through Morgan Rogers, and Matty Cash also came close to opening the scoring. However, it was Liverpool who broke the deadlock before halftime.

Martinez attempted to play the ball towards Pau Torres, but it was a sloppy pass that fell straight to Mo Salah, who simply rolled it into the net.

Ryan Gravenberch then doubled Liverpool's lead just before the hour mark, taking the game away from Villa.

The main talking point after Villa’s defeat was, of course, Martinez’s mistake that gifted Salah a golden chance to open the scoring.

Emery addressed the incident in his post-match press conference, taking responsibility for the error.

“We need to try to play with personality through our structure and through our roles and take good positioning,” Emery explained.

“Pau was getting his position to play with this pass and then through those passes to feel good and in that case lost the ball.

“Of course, to build in our structure strong and not conceding the chances we conceded.

“It was easy for Salah. It was a huge mistake but one thing in our process under my responsibility. I accept it and we build a team here through the style we want to keep in our process in the club and in the next matches.

“We must avoid huge mistakes like we made today in the first goal we conceded.

“But it's something that is part of our process and we are going to analyse, to identify how we will build in these circumstances for the next matches.