A trio of Aston Villa players were responsible for their consistent attacking threat and they combined for both goals, too. Christian Benteke, Jack Grealish and Fabian Delph were all outstanding and Liverpool never got to grips with this triangle in their right-back zone.

Aston Villa were broadly playing in a 4-3-2-1 system, with Grealish and Charles N’Zogbia floating behind the lone striker Benteke. While N’Zogbia played to the right, and was peripheral, the hugely impressive Grealish played with a fearlessness that deserted Liverpool and was crucial in encouraging Villa to play passes into the final third quickly – he varied his position intelligently and was happy to collect the ball in tight spaces.

Benteke’s positioning, too, was important. Rather than playing up against the natural centre-backs, Dejan Lovren and Martin Skrtel, the Belgian drifted into the zone occupied by Emre Can, a talented midfielder who has adapted manfully to a centre-back role but is not a natural against powerful forwards such as Benteke. He was often bullied off the ball and Benteke’s dominance encouraged Grealish and the ever-energetic Delph forward to support him.

Both Villa’s goals came from this crucial battle zone. For the equaliser Delph slalomed past a couple of opponents in midfield, slipped in Grealish and then raced on to the return pass before producing a clever cut-back for Benteke’s composed finish across Simon Mignolet.

The second goal was similar: Delph collected possession in midfield before releasing Benteke down the left. The Belgian back-heeled the ball into the path of Grealish, whose quick forward pass to Delph put the midfielder through on goal; he cut inside and finished coolly.

The first goal flowed through Delph, Grealish, Delph again, then Benteke. The second was Delph, Benteke, Grealish, then Delph again. Villa’s captain appearing twice in both moves epitomises his energy and determination to get beyond team-mates and provide outlets for one-twos past opponents. It was something peculiarly lacking from Liverpool’s Jordan Henderson, a similar type of player.

The Liverpool manager, Brendan Rodgers, had started the game with a 3-4-3 system, although after a poor opening moved to 4-2-3-1, which seemed to help his side control the midfield zone. For the second half it was more 4-3-3, with the anonymous Steven Gerrard switching from a role in advance of Henderson and Joe Allen to a position just behind them where he could see more of the ball. Amid all the chopping and changing, however, Liverpool were unable to match Villa’s passing triangles.

Rodgers was clearly concerned about the right flank, too, first removing Lazar Markovic at half-time to allow Mario Balotelli to come on, then introducing the right-back Glen Johnson late on in place of the midfielder Allen, with Can moving forward. But Rodgers could not find a solution and Villa fully deserved their victory.