Unai Emery fumes at Aston Villa penalty call and makes honest Liverpool admission

Unai Emery was adamant Aston Villa were “clearly” denied a penalty before Liverpool sealed Premier League victory over his team on Saturday evening. Villa were behind to Darwin Nunez’s opener when, as they prepared to deliver a free-kick from the left wing shortly before the hour mark, Pau Torres tumbled to the ground after being held by Reds substitute Conor Bradley.

Referee David Coote waved away appeals with the incident subsequently checked and cleared by VAR Paul Tierney.

The visitors also believed Torres was fouled by Ryan Gravenberch seconds before Mohamed Salah broke down the other end six minutes from time to seal a 2-0 win and send Liverpool five points clear at the Premier League summit.

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And an unhappy Emery said of the first penalty claim: “With the VAR, it was clearly a penalty because he pulled the shirt of Pau Torres.

“I know in Europe this is a penalty but here in England, they want to use VAR but I don't know exactly where because in this situation it is clear. I always respect the decision of the referee and I respect it but for me, when I watched it with VAR it is a clear penalty.

“And, of course, it was in a very important moment in the game because if we had the opportunity to shoot the penalty, maybe the match would have been different. I accept the result and the referee's decision but I don't agree.”

Of the game, Emery added: “The result is not good. However, we played 90 minutes trying to be competitive, which was the plan we had. We conceded to transition, we knew they are strong in transition with the players they have but in 90 minutes how we played, how some players are getting better, I am confident because I think we are in the right way.

“We wanted to get more but we can accept the result because they (Liverpool) are feeling very strong here at home. They didn’t really dominate or create a lot of chances to us.

“We created some attacks, but we needed a bit more to get a real chance to score. We had one very clear chance with Morgan Rogers at the start of the second half and then we try but they (Liverpool) are one of the best defences in the world.”

Villa finished 14 points and one position behind third-placed Liverpool last season but are already 10 points adrift of the Reds after 11 games.

And Emery said: “We are trying to increase our level of the match but of course there still distance to teams in the Premier League like Liverpool and Manchester City.

“There is still a gap between Liverpool and us. Last year we were close in the table, this year the gap is bigger, the gap is still one gap for them better than us. I think we can reduce the distance in 38 matches, try to be consistent to be demanding, to improve things, to recover some players.”