Late personnel change confirmed for Liverpool’s clash against Aston Villa; good omen for Reds | OneFootball

A late change in personnel has been confirmed for Liverpool’s Premier League clash away to Aston Villa tonight.

Both Unai Emery and Arne Slot have injury issues with which to contend for this fixture. Boubacar Kamara, Pau Torres, Ross Barkley and Amadou Onana are all ruled out for the home side, with three other players facing pre-match fitness tests (avfc.co.uk).

Meanwhile, the Reds have three confirmed injury absentees in Joe Gomez, Cody Gakpo and Tyler Morton, although Curtis Jones is available once more after he served his one-match suspension against Wolves on Sunday.

Change of referee for Aston Villa v Liverpool

We won’t know the starting line-ups until 75 minutes before kick-off tonight, but one significant change has already been confirmed for the game at Villa Park.

As per the Sheffield Star (via The Mirror), Stuart Attwell was originally assigned to referee the match, but he’s now been replaced by Craig Pawson, a reversal of the swap which was made for the Championship clash between Leeds and Sunderland on Monday night.

(Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images)

Liverpool have a good record with Pawson as ref

Liverpool fans will be hoping that their team can secure victory without any controversial talking points, although the late change of officials could be a good omen for the Reds.

As per Transfermarkt, LFC have won their last 10 matches when Pawson was in charge, including the 2022 FA Cup final (on penalties), a 6-1 drubbing of Leeds two years ago and most recently the 4-0 romp over Tottenham in the Carabao Cup earlier this month.

The sequence goes back all the way to the 3-2 defeat at West Ham in November 2021, when Aaron Cresswell was fortunate to escape a red card for a heavy challenge on Jordan Henderson, and Alisson Becker seemed to be impeded from a corner kick from which the Irons scored (BBC Sport).

We just hope that the Sheffield native will have a substantially less eventful night than Michael Oliver did in the Merseyside derby this day last week – it’d take something especially spicy for that not to be the case at Villa Park.

The ideal scenario is another Liverpool win and a post-match analysis devoid of any refereeing controversies.