Champions League: Liverpool secure comfortable first leg win over Villarreal

English Premier League sides Manchester City and Liverpool FC both came away with an advantage after the first leg of this season's UEFA Champions League semi-finals. After City downed Real Madrid 4-3 on Tuesday, Liverpool dominated over another La Liga side, Villarreal CF, on Wednesday.

Liverpool secured a 2-0 win in front of their home crowd in Anfield, while completely outplaying the Yellow Submarine. The Spanish side was not able to impose the aggressive and highly physical play that allowed them to bulldoze past Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals.

This time, Liverpool had the upper hand as they pressured Villarreal throughout the first half. They had a number of missed opportunities, including an effort from Luis Diaz that was kept off by Villarreal keeper Geronimo Rulli.

Meanwhile, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah also made attempts that were just wide off the mark. Thiago Alcantara had perhaps the best missed chance after a powerful strike rattled the woodwork. The Liverpool goal proved to be inevitable, and Fabinho made a breakthrough early in the second half, only to see it ruled out for offside.

Ironically, it was a Villarreal player, Pervis Estupinan, who scored an own goal to finally give Liverpool the lead after 53 minutes. With the gates of the dam broken, Salah and Mane teamed up once more to double the lead.

Another Liverpool goal by Andrew Robertson was again ruled offside, making it clear that the final score of 2-0 was quite kind towards Villarreal. As such, they still have an opportunity to turn things around at the return leg at the Ceramica stadium next week.

Unai Emery admitted that they were lucky to only be down by two goals, considering how much Liverpool dominated the game. There were similar scenes at the Etihad Stadium the night before, with Los Blancos scrambling to keep up with Manchester City's barrage of goals.

Liverpool and City will be looking to create an all-English final for a second season in a row, but one would be wise not to rule out Villarreal and especially 13-time European Champions Real Madrid.