Aston Villa vs Liverpool LIVE: Premier League latest score and ...

Marcus Rashford makes his first start for Aston Villa following appearances off the bench against Tottenham and Ipswich, with the on-loan Manchester United forward lining up against rivals Liverpool.

Former Real Madrid forward Marco Asensio also starts against Liverpool, coming into a midfield that includes John McGinn and Youri Tielemans. Rashford joins Ollie Watkins and Morgan Rogers in an all-English attack.

Aston Villa XI: Martinez, Garcia, Disasi, Mings, Digne, Asensio, Tielemans, McGinn, Rashford, Rogers; Watkins.

Subs: Olsen, Zych, Cash, Bogarde, Maatsen, Malen, Ramsey; Jimoh-Aloba.

Liverpool XI: Alisson, Alexander-Arnold, Konate, Van Dijk, Robertson, Gravenberch, Mac Allister, Jones, Szoboszlai, Jota, Salah

Subs: Kelleher, Endo, Díaz, Núñez, Chiesa, Elliott, Tsimikas, Quansah, Bradley.

We’ll have the line-ups from Villa Park in the next few minutes, here’s a reminder of the early team news:

Unai Emery has one more new injury concern, with Boubacar Kamara forced off just 16 minutes into the draw with Ipswich at the weekend. He will likely face a late fitness test.

Ezri Konsa is unlikely to be back in time to face Liverpool, while Pau Torres and Matty Cash remain sidelined in defence and Amadou Onana is still some time away from a return. Ollie Watkins should be fit to start again, while Leon Bailey could return to the squad.

Cody Gakpo will not feature but is nearing a return after missing the win over Wolves due to a knock, but Curtis Jones returns to the squad after serving his suspension. Joe Gomez and Tyler Morton remain sidelined.

Tonight is not only a huge game for Liverpool but for Aston Villa as well. Unai Emery’s side will discover who they will face in the Champions League last-16 in Friday’s knockout stage draw, but they will want to qualify for next season’s competition as well.

Villa are winless in their last four Premier League games, through, with Saturday’s 1-1 draw at home to 10-man Ipswich leaving them 9th in the table and closer to the bottom half than the top-four. Even if they beat Liverpool tonight, they would only go above Fulham into 8th, which shows the scale of their challenge.

At the moment, Manchester City and Bournemouth occupy the final Champions League spots (assuming it goes down to fifth place). Villa are only five points behind the Cherries, but they’ve also got Chelsea - who they host on Saturday - and Newcastle in their way.

The business end of a season isn’t always the point to parade your principles. Arne Slot has attacking ideals, but a fondness for winning can override idealism. “Sometimes as a manager you have to be pragmatic as well and understand it is maybe not our game in terms of football, [so] then we as a coaching staff have to be ready to make decisions that help the team in those moments,” he rationalised.

The defining theme of Slot’s management at Anfield has not been a 4-2-3-1 formation or even the similarities and differences with Jurgen Klopp’s tactics. It has been excellent decision-making.

As Liverpool enter a crucial stage of the season, Arne Slot says he will lean on the experience of players like Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah, Alisson Becker, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson to lead the squad towards a second title in five years.

The last time Liverpool had a 10-point lead in the title race was when they won the Premier League in 2019-20, and while Slot had title winning experience himself with Feyenoord he says he wants his Premier League champions to help the team in tough moments.

"So the ones that won the league here already that was in [Covid] with fans not being in the stadium and at a certain point they were 25 points up so you can hardly talk about pressure then,” Slot said.

"Although I am the type of manager that if there are 10 games to be played and I'm 25 points up I still feel like 'oh, we have to win' but there was hardly any pressure then.

"But we do lean on the players because they have to show up and bring the performances in but not in the manner where today or tomorrow they present a meeting on how to deal with the pressure, that's not how it works."

Aston Villa were initially scheduled to host Liverpool in the early Saturday kick-off on 15 March, but that was rearranged after the Reds reached the Carabao Cup final (to be played against Newcastle on 16 March).

The rearranged game means Villa play Liverpool tonight, Chelsea on Saturday night, Crystal Palace next Tuesday and Cardiff in the FA Cup on Friday February 28 before heading into the Champions League the following week. That’s five games in 14 days.

Liverpool, meanwhile, play Manchester City on Sunday, Newcastle next Wednesday and then have the weekend off after being knocked out of the FA Cup, but they too will have Champions League football to prepare for the following week.

Aston Villa boss Unai Emery said his side’s rearranged fixture with Premier League leaders Liverpool is their “most difficult match” they have left this season.

Emery’s team have beaten Bayern Munich and Manchester City at home this season, while drawing with Juventus - but leaders Liverpool are unbeaten away from home in the league.

"This is the most difficult match we're going to play in the last weeks or months of the season," Emery said. "We are excited with who we will face tomorrow. Liverpool are the best team in the Premier League and Europe.

"Our challenge is how we face them and respond with our qualities and how we play at this level. We are excited and hopefully we can share our excited moments with our fans at Villa Park."

In his pre-match press conference, Arne Slot reserved praise for Manchester United’s on-loan forward Marcus Rashford, who is showing signs of finding form despite Aston Villa’s frustrating 1-1 draw with 10-man Ipswich on Saturday.

Rashford could be handed his first start of his loan spell against United’s rivals and Slot said he expects to see his quality.

“The first time I faced Rashford in real life was in the USA tour last summer. I was really impressed,” the Liverpool manager said.

“He’s a very good player, I hope for him he shows it at Villa but of course, not tomorrow. I would be completely surprised if a player of this quality isn’t going to show it in the upcoming months. He’s a very good player in my opinion.”

Liverpool boss Arne Slot on Liverpool team news and updates on Cody Gakpo and Joe Gomez:

“Both are unavailable. Cody is the closer to being back but Joe will take quite a long time. He is going to be out for a number of weeks because of a hamstring injury.

“It’s a big blow for Joe and for us. He tries to do everything to be with the team. He works really hard to come back and then the first game when he came back after two or three minutes we saw him making a sprint and now he is out for weeks again.

“So that’s always very hard for a player in every part of the season, let alone a part of the season everyone is looking forward to.”