Reaction'We have to stay on top of our game' - Arne Slot's press conference after Liverpool 2-0 Aston Villa

Darwin Nunez gave the Reds the lead in the 20th minute on Saturday night, before Mohamed Salah sealed a third home victory in the space of a week late on.

The result, coupled with second-placed Manchester City’s loss at Brighton & Hove Albion earlier in the day, means Slot’s team go into the November international break with a five-point advantage at the top of the Premier League.

Liverpool have now won 15, drawn one and lost only one of Slot’s first 17 matches in charge across all competitions.

Read our round-up from the head coach’s post-match press conference, where he also provided an injury update on Trent Alexander-Arnold, below.

On it ‘not getting much better’ than winning a game and going five points clear at the top of the table…

Because of the first reason – if you win it mostly doesn’t get better than that and yeah, you know if you win the amount of games we do, you can be ahead. It’s not sure yet in this league because Arsenal, City, Chelsea, all these clubs that are playing in this league, they are able to win so many games as well and that’s what they have shown in the last few seasons. So, we are only focused on ourselves and then a win against a very good team like Villa, who have done so well in the last few years, is always important.

On the Anfield atmosphere and whether City’s defeat provided the supporters with ‘extra motivation’…

I cannot tell what the fans felt about that. I can only tell that if my players need extra motivation for a result on the pitch, that would not be a good idea. I think if you play at Anfield in front of your own fans you should always be motivated and that’s what they’ve been for the time I have been here now and probably the years before as well. So, you should not need motivation from a result on another pitch and that’s also not what I felt today with the players. Maybe the fans feel different, I don’t know, you’d have to ask them.

On the fact both goals came from Villa corners and whether Liverpool had paid attention to their opponents’ set-pieces beforehand…

We did put effort in defending them from scoring because that was also today – not in general, but today – that was their main threat in my opinion, their set-pieces, so we had to do a lot to prevent them from scoring and one or two times we needed our goalkeeper for that. And then these counter-breaks had nothing to do with what we do on the training ground or what we tell them before: that is pure quality and purely what the players come up with in these transition moments. For us, it’s about preventing the other team from scoring but for the ones that have been here for so many years it’s not going to be a complete surprise because it happened before I think.

• 'A very big win' - Alexis Mac Allister's verdict on Liverpool 2-0 Aston Villa

On his plans for the goalkeeper position once Alisson Becker is fit again…

First of all, Alisson needs to become fit and I’ve always been quite clear and that’s always been the position of Alisson that he is, and will be, our first goalkeeper if he is fit. But therefore he first needs to be it, but Caoimhin [Kelleher] has done outstanding last season and this season again as well. But the moment Alisson will be fit he will be our first goalkeeper.

On whether he feels this last week could be a significant one for the season as a whole, with three consecutive home wins…

It was definitely a big week but every game is a big week. We play so many games in all these competitions against so much strong opponents, so hopefully we will have a lot of these weeks to come because these weeks are mostly big if you are competing for something and that is what we are doing at the moment. We are competing, trying to compete for the league, trying to compete for the Champions League and trying to compete for the cups we are in as well. We also know it’s a long season where we have to continuously be on top of our game because the likes of Arsenal, City and Chelsea and all these other clubs are able to win just as many games as we did in the first 15 to 16 games. So, we have to stay on top of our game, which is never going to be easy but we’ll push for it as much as we can.

• Read our match report from Anfield