Steven Gerrard takes aim at Mo Salah following Aston Villa defeat on Anfield return

Aston Villa manager Steven Gerrard was left ruing two penalty decisions following his side’s 1-0 defeat to Premier League title-chasers Liverpool on his return to Anfield.

The Villans boss admitted his side were outplayed for much of the match but ultimately only lost the game due to a “soft” penalty after Mohamed Salah went down in the box and then scored the resulting spot kick himself.

Speaking after an emotional return to the club where he spent almost his entire career, Gerrard said: “Penalty box to penalty box Liverpool were better than us.

“But ultimately the game has been decided by a penalty. There were two penalty incidents in the game, Liverpool got theirs – and if you look at it, Salah fouls Tyrone Mings first.”

While his side ceded the majority of the possession and were out-shot 20 to four, Gerrard felt his side should have had a spot kick too.

"I thought we had a decent shout for a penalty, there was certainly contact from Alisson on Danny Ings and if you follow it there is a two-hand shove on Ollie Watkins," Gerrard said.

"We thought that deserved the referee and VAR taking another look but it looked like they wanted to move on quickly.

"Ultimately we have lost the game in the other box which we felt was a foul on Tyrone, it feels harsh.”

Was Gerrard too defensive?

The Villa manager also admitted he possibly could have been more ambitious with his team’s set up but he did not want to go "gung ho" and be on the end of a thrashing.

Villa did, however, create plenty of problems for Liverpool in the last 15 minutes when Gerrard sent on Ings and Emiliano Buendia.

Gerrard said: "We tried to get the balance right and I thought we did a good job of trying to contain Liverpool; you can try to be too gung ho and get hit for a scoreline which doesn’t help.

"The plan was to try to take it to the latter stages and then throw more players on from the side and get more of our attacking players on the pitch.

"We’ll analyse and I’ll look at myself and whether I should have done it earlier. We didn’t want to get gung ho.

"I thought we were were defensively sound for the majority of the game and to lose it to a penalty was hard but you could see Liverpool were a level above."

Emotional return to Anfield

In the build-up, Gerrard had tried to play down the emotion of his return to his boyhood club but admits it was an emotional experience for everyone connected with him with the crowd singing his name early in the game and after the final whistle.

"When you take a job in the Premier League you are going to have to understand you are going to have these days," he added.

"I understand there will be emotion around it for me and my family. I tried to focus on Aston Villa and make sure that was the priority.

"I was very respectful and thankful for the reception I got, which was only natural because of the years of my life I gave to this club."

Jurgen Klopp’s reaction

Reds manager Jurgen Klopp felt his side fully deserved the win which kept them one point behind leaders Manchester City and one ahead of Chelsea in the three-way title race.

Salah’s winning goal helped Liverpool equal the club record of scoring in 31 successive matches set set in January 1958.

Klopp said: "We were the better team for 75 minutes and opened up the game in the last 15 minutes and there was some situations which were tricky," he said.

"Our job was to cause Villa a lot of problems but we could have been better in the last pass, our decision-making could have been better."

What did Klopp say to Gerrard?

Asked what was said between him and Gerrard, Klopp added: "He said ‘Congratulations’ and I said ‘Thank you’.

"Nothing will come between him and me but in the end we are focused. You can be best friends with someone and want to beat them.

"It is the same with me and David Wagner (who’s Klopp’s best friend and also manager).

"There is one person it was not easy for and that is Stevie. They fought really hard for a result."