Liverpool player ratings vs Aston Villa: Ngumoha stands out as three 4/10s drag down Liverpool

Liverpool left Villa Park with a 4-2 defeat on Friday evening, and the ratings reflect exactly how uneven the night was. Rio Ngumoha came out on top for Liverpool, while Virgil van Dijk's two goals were not enough to rescue a flat team performance. The split was sharp: one bright spot, three heavy lows and a result that felt bigger than the scoreline alone.

Ngumoha was Liverpool's best performer

The clearest positive was Ngumoha, who was Liverpool's highest-rated player in the source set. The Express gave him 7/10, while Sports Illustrated's stats pack had him at 7.2, which is as close as you need to a clean consensus on who stood out most. Grey Whitebloom's verdict was blunt too: "The one flicker of welcome light amid Liverpool’s raging dumpster fire of a season, Rio Ngumoha was once again his side’s standout player."

That mattered because so many of the rest of the attacking ratings went the other way. Alexis Mac Allister, Federico Chiesa and Mohamed Salah all received 4/10 from the Express, which is a bleak trio for a side chasing a result away from home. Dominik Szoboszlai did at least supply two assists, but Liverpool still came away empty-handed.

Van Dijk's brace did not change the result

Van Dijk was the outlier in every sense. He scored twice and earned an 8.3 rating, the best individual mark in the stats pack, but Aston Villa still won 4-2 and sealed Champions League qualification next season. Whitebloom noted that Szoboszlai "may have stumbled to gift-wrap the first of Ollie Watkins’s two goals which put Villa into a lead that they never again relinquished."

There is a reasonable debate here about how much weight to put on one defender's goals in a losing cause. The honest answer is not much. Van Dijk's numbers were excellent, but the wider story was Liverpool conceding four and getting too little from the rest of the side when the game tilted against them. If anything, the ratings sharpen that point rather than soften it.

Liverpool are listed fourth in the Premier League standings, while Villa are listed fifth in the stats pack. The final day now matters, with Brentford coming to Anfield on 2026-05-24 at 15:00:00+00. For Liverpool, the performance at Villa Park leaves a straightforward conclusion: Ngumoha earned the praise, Van Dijk did his part, and too many others did not.