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• Away results are better than at home for Liverpool
• ‘At home not getting what we deserve,’ says Dalglish

Kenny Dalglish disagrees with the school of thought that suggests his Liverpool side perform better away from home. On the road this season Liverpool have picked up four wins, including important results against Arsenal and Chelsea. At Anfield, where they are expected to be stronger, they have registered three wins, although five draws means the points tally is slightly greater.

Liverpool’s last away match ended in defeat at Fulham, their first in all competitions since mid-September.

That result could easily have gone the other way and while Dalglish was happy with that display he does not think it differed from performances at Anfield. “Our away form has been really impressive,” he said ahead of taking his side to Aston Villa looking to avenge the 1-0 defeat on the final day of last season in his 350th match in charge of Liverpool. “We got beaten the last time away from home but the performance was good enough to have won it.

“We have picked up more wins away from home but it doesn’t necessarily say we are playing any better. At home we are playing well but we are not getting the results the performances deserve.”

Although Liverpool returned to winning ways last Saturday with victory over QPR, a familiar story unfolded at Anfield where they created the majority of chances but had to rely on Luis Suárez’s header to secure three points.

Dalglish has almost run out of expressions to decry their luck in front of goal or his sympathy for the players whom he feels deserve more for their efforts, but despite a paltry 18 goals from 15 league matches he will not be altering their approach. “We’ve not come up against a goalkeeper who hasn’t been outstanding against us,” he said.

“I think 16 [shots] against the woodwork makes a contribution as well. At the same time the responsibility is on us to create chances and then finish them off.’ We will continue to make chances and we’ll probably win a game scoring every chance that we make, so we’ll look forward to that.”

Villa, who face Arsenal and Chelsea in the next fortnight for a tricky set of Christmas fixtures, are seven points behind Liverpool and have lost two of their past six matches – against Manchester United and Tottenham – but won last Saturday at Bolton.

Kenny DalglishLiverpoolAston VillaPremier League 2011-12guardian.co.uk

Liverpool will not be playing in Europa League next season as a 1-0 defeat at Villa Park proved insufficient to displace Tottenham and book an extended tour of the Euro-periphery. In truth nobody in Liverpool colours – players, fans or manager – seemed to mind too much as Villa narrowly shaded a match played at end-of-term pace.

On a balmy, demob-happy afternoon Villa Park was a sell-out for the first time this season; perhaps also for the first time this season Gerard Houllier’s name was sung around Villa Park in the early minutes, albeit by the away support. Rumours that Houllier might reappear here after recovering from his illness proved overly optimistic. Instead it was Gary McAllister who sent out his team in an attacking Christmas tree formation with Stewart Downing and Ashley Young interchanging behind Darren Bent.

After a sleepy start the first chance of the game arrived out of the blue on 14 minutes, Ashley Young hacking Martin Skrtel’s looping header from a corner off the line. After which Villa quietly dominated possession, with Downing popping up on both wings and demonstrating the elegant, direct running that helped secure him the Villa fans’ player of the year award.

Downing scored the winning goal just after the half hour, smashing a bouncing ball into the roof of the net from a narrow angle on the left after Marc Albrighton’s teasing cross from the right.

The second biggest cheer of the afternoon arrived seven minutes into the second half with news that Birmingham had gone behind at Tottenham. With the spectre of a cut-price euro-tour now fully in retreat, Liverpool seemed to wake up.

On the hour mark Luis Suárez left Kyle Walker and James Collins on the turf with a single jink and played in Raul Meireles 10 yards out. His shot was saved at full stretch by Brad Friedel.

Meireles and Lucas Leiva controlled the midfield for much of the second half, but it was Villa who went closest to scoring again on 77 minutes when Gabriel Agbonlahor failed to connect with Bent’s low cross in front of an open goal. All that remained was for Young, strongly linked with Liverpool, to leave the field in stoppage time to an extended – and mutual – ovation that seemed to suggest a fond farewell.

Premier LeagueAston VillaLiverpoolBarney Ronayguardian.co.uk

Wigan’s plight may be due to the club’s transit-camp reputation

Roberto Martínez has a bee in his bonnet about the January transfer window. It is unsettling, he reckons, to have players approached and agents in action at a time in the season when crucial games are taking place, and he believes the disruption affected Wigan Athletic’s concentration and has quite possibly cost them points.

“At Christmas we are like a supermarket for the rest of the clubs in the league,” he says. “Anyone who wants a player seems to think: ‘Let’s see who Wigan have got.’ But at the same time as I am fending off enquiries and the players are talking to half a dozen agents about possible moves, we are supposed to win matches. It is not fair on the smaller clubs. I think the winter window should shrink to maybe a fortnight, with a weekend off in the middle, so that deals can be done and players are moved around before the second half of the season starts up, with everyone knowing where they stand.”

The Wigan manager may have a point, and he certainly has players on his books who would attract bigger clubs. Leighton Baines, Antonio Valencia and Wilson Palacios have already moved onwards and upwards from Wigan, and it seems only a matter of time and money before Charles N’Zogbia, Hugo Rodallega and Maynor Figueroa eventually follow. No one at Wigan resents players using the club as a stepping stone, Martínez least of all, although a transit-camp reputation may help explain why a capable manager is still waiting for back-to-back league victories after two seasons in charge, and why a side boasting players who can attract interest from the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool finds itself needing to win at Stoke City tomorrow to preserve its Premier League status.

Martínez predicted a couple of weeks ago that Wigan would need to win their last two games to stay up, and they at least gave themselves a chance with the stirring comeback that led to West Ham United being relegated last week. What Martínez could not have predicted was that winning two successive league games for the first time under his stewardship to finish on 42 points still might not be enough to guarantee survival. If there is a winner in the Wolves-Blackburn game, and Birmingham and Blackpool also win tomorrow, 42 points would only lift the Latics to third from bottom. There are a lot of ifs in that scenario, of course; in all probability a win at Stoke would be enough to keep Wigan up, and anyone who goes to the Britannia Stadium and takes all three points undoubtedly deserves to succeed, whatever the circumstances.

Yet although it is easy to scoff at Blackpool’s chances of saving themselves at Old Trafford or the possibility of Birmingham turning around a dreadful run of form by springing a surprise at Tottenham, you never quite know on the last day. Blackpool were two goals to the good against United with 20 minutes to play at Bloomfield Road in January after all, and that was when United were trying to win the title. Now they have nothing left to play for, and the suggestion that Sir Alex Ferguson’s reserves will be outdoing each other in an attempt to win a place at Wembley next weekend overlooks the strong possibility that the United manager will have known his side for the Champions League final from the moment Schalke were beaten in the semi-final.

At least Tottenham have something to play for, and with a home game against struggling Birmingham they ought to be confident of securing fifth place and pipping Liverpool to the remaining Europa League place. That’s fine, as long as you are convinced Spurs actually want to be in the Europa League next season. The result at Anfield last week could be regarded as a sign that Liverpool were not all that bothered about the less exciting of Uefa’s two competitions, and after the season Spurs have just had in the Champions League, a return to the Europa’s Thursday-Sunday treadmill does not seem to be filling Harry Redknapp with enthusiasm.

The Europa League is fine for teams with limited European experience – Stoke, Bolton or Fulham, say – but can only be a comedown for anyone with a Champions League pedigree. It would be entirely understandable if both Liverpool and Spurs wanted to give themselves a clear run at a top-four finish next season, without the complications of a minor European contest that goes on for too long. The usual compromise seems to be to take the Europa seriously before Christmas then get out before the going gets tough in the league; although in the context of tomorrow’s relegation struggle it cannot automatically be assumed that Spurs will be massively motivated by the prospect of European qualification. They do not have quite the same incentive as Manchester City have to finish above Arsenal and bypass the Champions League’s qualification round.

But no one has such an urgent incentive as the clubs playing for survival. “We might as well forget about the league, we just have one more cup final to win,” Martínez says. “There will never be a better time to win two in a row, that’s for sure, although whatever the result at Stoke we have lost fewer games than ever before in the Premier League this season, so that is a real improvement.”

Perhaps Martínez is too idealistic for a dogfight, whereas Alex McLeish, with two relegations behind him, is the real Chumbawamba. “I’ve been knocked down a few times and I’ve got up again pretty quickly,” the Birmingham manager says. “We are looking for one last gigantic effort and the players are certainly capable. It has been hard this season but they have battled for every single point. It has been a hugely competitive league with many memorable games, and three teams will go down that probably don’t deserve to.”

It is hardest of all to argue Blackpool deserve the drop, yet as Ian Holloway has just pointed out in apocalyptic terms, the end of the world will arrive unless the Seasiders can do something no one else has managed this season – beat the champions on their own ground. One feels Blackpool deserve some sort of award just for getting this far in such admirable style. Unfortunately that is not the way leagues work.

Just for the record, but mostly for the rare opportunity to claim prescience, you could read in this column back in August that Newcastle and West Brom would stay up while West Ham and Blackpool would go down with Wigan. So far so Nostradamus, except I do not expect the present bottom three to be the final one. Based on last week’s results, I give Wigan a fighting chance of escape, with either Birmingham or Blackburn being sucked down at the last.

Premier LeagueWigan AthleticBlackpoolBirmingham CityTottenham HotspurLiverpoolPaul Wilsonguardian.co.uk