For half an hour at Anfield on Tuesday night, Liverpool looked like a team that had already decided this one would take care of itself. Villarreal did not agree. Two goals up inside 20 minutes, with 700 away supporters making a racket in the corner, the Spanish side had the run of the place. Then an 18-year-old took over, and the evening turned into something else entirely.
Rio Ngumoha did not score. He did not need to. He created the goal that dragged Liverpool level before the interval and the goal that put them in front after it, and by the time Andoni Iraola took him off on 74 minutes the crowd had worked out what they were watching. Liverpool won 4-3 and have taken nine points from nine in Europe. They made it as hard as they possibly could.
A sloppy start that Villarreal punished twice
Iraola had made six changes from Saturday's win at Brentford, with Alexander Isak, Bradley Barcola and Florian Wirtz all starting on the bench. The rhythm went with them. Renato Veiga launched a long ball that Virgil van Dijk ought to have dealt with comfortably; instead the captain's header back towards Alisson was weak, Georges Mikautadze read it, and the finish with his left foot was calm enough to suggest he had expected the gift.
The second was worse, in its way, because nobody could blame a single error. Nathan Saliba simply passed through the middle of a Liverpool defence that had drifted apart, and Sergi Cardona slotted past Alisson. Kostas Tsimikas was caught too deep. Van Dijk was still arguing with himself about the first.
Ngumoha turns the night around
Liverpool got one back in the 36th minute, Alexis Mac Allister heading in a Tsimikas corner that Cody Gakpo had won. The equaliser, right on the brink of half-time, was the moment the match tilted. Ngumoha dinked a ball over the Villarreal defence with the kind of weight that cannot be coached into a player, and Ronald Araujo arrived to finish it. The Uruguayan's celebration said plenty about how quickly this crowd has taken to him.
Araujo did not come back out. Wirtz replaced him at the break, Ryan Gravenberch shifted to right-back, and Liverpool were a different proposition. Ngumoha went past Cardona again — by then it was becoming uncomfortable to watch from the Villarreal left-back's point of view — and rolled the ball across for Mac Allister to tap in his second. Wirtz added a fourth with his left foot, his first club goal of the season.
A late scare, and a teenager the crowd will remember
It should have been comfortable from there. It was not. Ayoze Perez found Tani Oluwaseyi, Liverpool stopped moving, and suddenly a three-goal cushion was a one-goal lead with the clock still running. Alisson will not enjoy watching the three back, even if every Villarreal finish was well struck.
Trey Nyoni was the other bright spark, positive on the ball all night and close to a first Liverpool goal of his own. But the night belonged to Ngumoha, who became the youngest player to register an assist for Liverpool in the Champions League and collected a 9 out of 10 in the BBC player ratings — the highest mark on the pitch by a distance. Three wins from three, top of their group, and a problem Iraola will quite enjoy having: where does he leave this kid out?
Match facts: Liverpool 4-3 Villarreal, Anfield, Champions League league phase. Liverpool: Mac Allister 36 and second half, Araujo, Wirtz. Villarreal: Mikautadze, Cardona, Oluwaseyi. Ngumoha, 18, provided two assists and was replaced by Barcola on 74 minutes. Liverpool have won all three of their European matches this season.
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