Aston Villa 0 Liverpool 1: Rodgers talks up Reds’ winning mentality

Brendan Rodgers says Liverpool’s mentality is to win every game after Daniel Sturridge netted the club’s winner against Aston Villa.

The 23-year-old striker scored his second Premier League goal of the season after racing onto Iago Apas’ deft pass and rounding Villa goalkeeper Brad Guzan before slotting into the vacated net.

In the second half, Liverpool were forced to defend deeper as Villa, led by the prolific Christian Benteke, searched for an equaliser at Villa Park.

And Rodgers praised his side for being disciplined and seeing through the gameplan.

“We just needed to defend a bit deeper today, Aston Villa are brilliant on the counter and we had to deny them chances,” Rodgers told Sky Sports.

“It’s a great win for us because they are such a difficult team to play against. We were calm on the ball in the first half, our movement was fluent and very good and we knew we couldn’t open up too much because they would hurt us on the counter.

“Simon Mignolet made a couple of terrific saves but it was about the three points today and we got them. Since January we have been getting better and better. The mentality now is to win every game and there are a lot of good signs.”