Coming from behind to hold Liverpool 3-3 in round 37, Aston Villa is firmly in fourth place, with five points ahead of Tottenham before the final round of the Premier League.

The latest match of round 37 at Villa Park took place with an eye-catching duel. Liverpool opened the scoring with the first ball in the second minute, when Harvey Elliott crossed from the right side and hit midfielder Pau Torres to change direction. 2022 World Cup champion Emiliano Martinez was startled and pushed the ball into his own net.

At 61 seconds, this is the earliest own goal in the Premier League, since Antolin Alcaraz scored after just 54 seconds in Everton’s match against Southampton in April 2014. This is also the third time Martinez has conceded a goal in the Premier League – the worst statistics of any goalkeeper in the history of the tournament.

Villa were understandably rocked and Liverpool smelt blood. Then, out of nowhere, Villa were suddenly level.

Elliott played a wayward pass which struck a Villa defender and the ball landed at John McGinn’s feet who threaded a pass through to Ollie Watkins.

The England striker surged forward menacingly and fronted up young Jarrell Quansah, slowing the kid down before suddenly speeding up again with an electric burst of pace to leave him dead.

Once around the back of the Reds defence Watkins had the good sense to pull the ball back beyond the penalty spot.

And Tielemans was steaming in to slam the ball low past three defenders and Alisson.

But midway through this extraordinary half Liverpool regained their lead – eventually.

Salah played in Diaz who worked the ball wide to Joe Gomez and the left-back swept in a low cross which Martinez could only get the merest of touches to.

That left the in-rushing Cody Gakpo with the simplest of tap-ins.

These are the 1,195th and 1,196th goals respectively in the Premier League this season, becoming the season with the second highest number of goals in the history of the tournament after only the 1992-1993 season with 1,222 goals.

But Liverpool were made to sweat it out for a couple of tense minutes as VAR Chris Kavanagh checked for TWO possible offsides in the build up before finally awarding the goal.

Villa really should have struck back swiftly but incredibly they passed up the chance of a lifetime – 32 years after Ronnie Rosenthal’s miss of the century at the same venue.

Konsa flicked the ball to Bailey who took out Alisson and the ball was heading to Watkins for a simple tap-in at the far post.

But to the striker’s horror Diego Carlos nipped in front of him to poke the ball wide of a gaping goal from one yard!

According to Opta the XG factor was 0.96, meaning Carlos would have been expected to score 96 times out of 100 attempts from that range.

Having survived that scare Liverpool gave themselves the security of a two-goal lead three minutes after the restart.

In the 48th minute, Elliott took a free kick for midfielder Jarell Quansah to head diagonally, bouncing the ball into the net, leaving Martinez rooted to the spot.

Villa thought they had hit back after 52 minutes when Tielmans sent Bailey and Diaby scampering clear.

Bailey centred for Watkins to score and the striker celebrated becoming the first Villa player to score 20 goals in the Prem – or so he thought – until VAR intervened.

It ruled that Bailey was fractionally offside and the Jamaican lashed out in fury that no-one had informed him Diaby was better placed to take the ball.

Watkins tried to catch Alisson out with a backheel which didn’t come off.

Then Diaz broke free and squared to Elliott who just beat Salah to bundle the ball home – only for VAR to rule out yet another ‘goal’.

Sub Callum Chambers robbed Alexis Mac Allister and the ball flew to Jhon Duran whose brilliant first touch set him up to drill his shot beyond Alisson from the edge of the box.

Darwin Nunez then raced clear to net at the other end – but VAR ruled it out for offside.

And amazingly the last word went to Duran who added a second to draw Villa level after 88 minutes.

The 3-3 score was scored for Duran and he became the first substitute player to score a double against Liverpool in the Premier League since Leroy Sane (Man City) in September 2017.

On May 19, Liverpool will return to Anfield to face Wolves in their last match under Jurgen Klopp.