Aston Villa boss Dean Smith believes it's “crazy” that Liverpool snatched victory at Anfield on the strength of their second-half performance.
Ollie Watkins gave Villa the lead against the run of play two minutes before the interval in their Premier League clash on Saturday.
But an equaliser 12 minutes after the break from Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold’s injury-time winner earned the Reds a first Anfield win since before Christmas.
And when asked if he thought Villa were unlucky not to take anything from the game, Smith responded: “After 30 minutes I didn’t feel unlucky, I felt fortunate to be 0-0 as we didn’t start the game particularly well.
“We made mistakes with square passes in our defensive third which put us under pressure.
“But thanks to poor finishing from them and good defending from us we managed to keep it to 0-0.
“With one of our first good moves we scored a goal as Ollie Watkins did what he does.”
Smith added: “It was great to go in at half-time and not play that great and be leading.
“The crazy game of football, I thought were were better second half and ended up losing that 2-0.
“I don’t think they troubled us as much as they did in the first half. We’re disappointed to be going away with nothing, I felt we probably deserved a point.
“We wanted to try to win the game, we felt we could. I thought we caused them problems defensively in the second half.”
Smith was spotted exchanged words with Liverpool counterpart Jurgen Klopp on the touchline after the final whistle.
And he said: “He was good, I just said well done to him. That’s what you say when a team has just beat you.
“We don’t view Liverpool as a vulnerable side, certainly not.
“I saw them against Arsenal and they were excellent. Vulnerable is not the word I’d use for a team and a coach as highly esteemed as they are.”
