Verdict from Anfield as Liverpool make it three straight Champions League victories with a 4-3 win over Villarreal

In his pre-match press conference on Monday, Andoni Iraola was honest enough to admit that being the Liverpool boss leaves little time to ever sit back and reflect. But if the head coach finds a moment or two between now and Sunday's visit from Brighton, he will surely be able to bask in what has been the best week of his short Anfield tenure so far.

The Champions League's great entertainers is perhaps not the tag Iraola wants for his emerging side but after a 6-3 victory at LASK last Wednesday, they beat Villarreal 4-3 here at Anfield to make it three wins in six days, following Brentford's dispatching in London on Saturday.

The Reds made hard work of it at both ends of the game, trailing 2-0 before having to hold on in the dying embers, but Iraola now has his second win at home and qualification to the knockout stages is looking like a safe enough bet, provided they don't implode as they approach the halfway mark, which will come with full-time of the Fenerbahce game on November 4.

OPINION

Victory in Turkey next month and then it really will be about resource management for the final four fixtures against Porto, Club Brugge, Inter and Lens.

Over the last year, the Champions League has largely provided Liverpool with welcome relief from the stresses and strains of domestic action and since the competition became a 36-team giant group stage in 2024, they have lost just three of 19 games.

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One of those was a dead-rubber in Eindhoven in January 2025 as a much-changed side - who had already qualified - still sealed their spot as inaugural group-stage winners despite defeat to PSV.

A 1-0 reverse at Galatasaray was also relatively inconsequential in October of last year before a 4-1 loss to PSV provided the nadir of Arne Slot's time as head coach 11 months ago.

This latest triumph means the Reds have now won 24 of their last 28 group-stage games at home, dating back to the start of the 2017/18 campaign under Jurgen Klopp, which was their first campaign in the European Cup for three seasons at the time.

Anfield may not be quite the fortress it was in the Premier League but there are few more difficult assignments for continental opposition. That bodes well, should Liverpool progress to the latter rounds.

Now up to nine points in this season's campaign, Iraola is already well placed to start picking and choosing his key players and with the fixtures piling up over the winter, that will be hugely beneficial. Particularly in late November when Manchester United and Everton appear on the schedule between a trip to Brugge.

Iraola did exactly that here, making six changes in total and it initially looked like a huge mistake before the team he selected eventually got to grips with proceedings and secured the points.

The Reds started the game sluggishly and alarm bells were already ringing before a slack header from Virgil van Dijk was punished by Georgian striker Georges Mikautadze. Timed at three minutes and 54 seconds, it was the earliest Liverpool had conceded in a Champions League game at Anfield since Boavista in September 2001.

Even that wasn't enough to snap the Reds from their lethargy, though. The Yellow Submarine could barely believe their luck when Santi Cardona sprung the poorly executed offside trap to slide past Alisson Becker and double their lead.

That, belatedly, was enough to wake up the much-changed home side. Alexis Mac Allister's glancing header from Kostas Tsimikas's corner reduced the arrears before the new fan-favourite, Ronald Araujo, steered home another header with the final touch of the first period after a superbly lofted cross from Rio Ngumoha

Eighteen-year-old Ngumoha was sensational at times and lit up the contest, particularly in the second period, before leaving to a deserved standing ovation for Bradley Barcola.

It was the teenage winger's balance and speed that allowed him to beat two men before he had the presence of mind to pick out the on-rushing Alexis Mac Allister to make it 3-2 after the restart.

Ngumoha claimed after Saturday's 2-1 win at Brentford that talks over a new and improved contract are simply his agent's job, but the more performances he delivers like this, the more costly it will be for the club to secure his signature.

It was no coincidence Duran Duran's Rio was pumped out of the Anfield speakers after the final whistle. They know they have a rare talent on their hands here.

Florian Wirtz, a second-half substitute for Araujo, capped a fine individual display with a smart finish for his first goal of the campaign to make it 4-2. The Germany international enabled Liverpool to knit the play together better in the final third and his left-footed strike from Cody Gakpo's cut-back was just reward.

After the disappointment of the defeat to Manchester City, when the £116m playmaker was largely anonymous, it's been a hugely encouraging week for Wirtz, building on his display at LASK last week with more of the same at Brentford and now Villarreal. Two assists and a goal in six days is a fine way to fire back at the critics.

Iraola was right in his assertion on Monday that the No.7 is overly scrutinised and discussed too often but these sort of performances on a more regular basis will only help change that discourse. Wirtz may just be finding his groove under his new head coach.

Iraola was even able to bring on Barcola and Alexander Isak in the second half and while the opening exchanges here suggest this squad is still a work in progress, the last week has been the biggest pointer yet that things are going in the right direction.