Salah makes Villa pay the penalty on Gerrard return

STEVEN GERRARD admitted he could have been more ambitious after his Anfield return ended in defeat.

Gerrard’s Aston Villa side had succeeded in frustrating their hosts, until Tyrone Mings felled Mo Salah in the box in the 67th minute, to give away a decisive penalty.

But Villa still had opportunities to take something from the game, courtesy of a more open approach in the final 20 minutes, that saw substitutes Emi Buendia and Danny Ings shine.

In fact, the pair’s contributions left Gerrard wondering if he might have bolstered his attack earlier in the game.

“We tried to get the balance right, and I thought we did an extremely good job to contain Liverpool for large periods of the game,” said the Kop legend.

“You can be too gung-ho against these types of teams too early, and you can get hit for a scoreline that doesn’t help anyone, especially so early into a job.

“Our plan was to take it to the latter stages and then try and throw more players at it, the likes of Danny Ings and Buendia, and get more of our attacking players on the pitch.

“We’ll certainly analyse it, looking forward, and I’ll look at myself and whether I should have done that earlier.

“Moving forward, hopefully I can throw on more attacking players and be more ambitious.”

Gerrard’s caution looked sensible in the early stages as his defence was forced to weather a storm at a saturated Anfield.

Liverpool’s best efforts in the opening exchanges came from distance, though, with Trent Alexander-Arnold and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain both shooting narrowly over.

And when keeper Emiliano Martinez was finally forced into action in the visiting goal, he did not let his teammates down.

The Argentine produced a fine stop from an Andy Robertson header low to his right, and was similarly sharp to keep out a fizzing Salah shot at the near post.

Although they were impressing defensively, Villa