Unai Emery believes that Aston Villa were “clearly” denied a penalty against Liverpool in the Premier League on Saturday evening. Goals from Darwin Nunez and Mo

The international break comes at a welcome time for Aston Villa as they look to regroup and put right their poor run of recent form. They are having to manage playing in Europe as well as sustaining a fight at the top end of the Premier League and this is proving a real test of Unai Emery's managerial credentials.

A key metric with Emery is “duels” and no Villa player came out on top of their match-up. Club B ruges made three times as many interceptions and twice the number of clearances. Villa made four tackles in the attacking half, none in the attacking third, and their hosts, typically direct in style, grew in confidence when playing from deep.