Saturday\’s early match sees Liverpool welcome Swansea to Anfield. Liverpool will be looking to get their title challenge back on course after a couple of disappointing results. Obviously, a draw away to Manchester United is no disgrace but the 2 points dropped at the Stadium of Light (against Sunderland) will be the ones that really stick in the craw.
Swansea have their own problems. They’re on their third manager of the season, their best striker might be on his way to Chelsea (if Conte gets his way) and their squad is looking thin in more than one area. Frankly, they lack fight and organization and only one of those can be coached. Stuck at the bottom of the table, I don’t think the signing of Narsingh or the imminent arrivals of Tom Carroll and Martin Olsson are going to be enough to get them out of trouble.
The bookies have made it clear who they think is going to win this game. Liverpool are clear favourites and with no green listed bookmaker offering anything above 1.24 there really is no value in backing them for a straight win. At the same time do you really want to go for the draw or back Swansea to get a shock win? Unlikely.
So, we’re left looking for value elsewhere. If Sadio Mane wasn’t away at the African Cup of Nations I’d seriously be looking at the Asian Handicap markets and backing Liverpool to overcome a handicap but without him, I’m not so sure. He’s very important to the Liverpool attack, offering pace and a directness that is very difficult to replace with a like for like swap. The recent return of Phillipe Coutinho is a boost and he’ll once again bring some guile to the Liverpool attack but the players around him will need to up their game as well.
In reality, this should be a relatively easy game for Liverpool if such a thing exists in the Premier League. Coming up against the bottom side in the league, a side that has shipped 16 goals away from home in their last 6 away matches, should give the Liverpool players a boost in confidence and see them go out there and dominate the game. Swansea did win their last away match but that was against Crystal Palace, and with all due respect, Liverpool are a very different proposition.
So, I’m ruling out betting on a Liverpool win, I can’t really see any other match odds result so I’m not backing those either. I don’t want to go into the Asian Handicap markets so that leaves me with just a few options. In the end, I’m going for Under 3 Goals in this one at odds of 2.31 with Pinnacle. It is a risk but this is one of those games where I expect Liverpool to go out and do a proper, professional job. They could end up scoring quite a few and yes that would cost me but I see this being a 2-0 home win, enough to win me my bet and enough to get them back on track.
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