Prediction: Liverpool vs Wolverhampton Wanderers

Verdict: Total goals under 2.5

Best odds: 7/5

Bookmaker: 888sport

Liverpool are set to welcome Wolverhampton Wanderers to Anfield on Sunday afternoon as the two teams prepare to take each other on in this season’s Premier League round 20. Having already beaten Leicester City twice, Wolves are the only side which the table toppers haven’t faced yet.

Liverpool

You have to look very hard if you wish to find anything negative to say about Liverpool team at the moment. Towards the end of last season, they started a staggering run of wins in the league which Manchester City had to match week by week to beat them to the title by a single point, but nothing, not even a 3-0 deficit from the first leg of the semi-final against Barcelona and injuries to key players for the second leg, could stop the Reds from winning the Champions League. They went on to win the Club World Cup and continued the run in the Premier League.

They are now 13 points clear at the top of the table, with a game in hand. Even the rival fans, who have been very loud in putting down the team that hasn’t won a league title since 1990, have started acknowledging this phenomenon and work that Jurgen Klopp has done. With 18 games played, they have 52 points to their name.

Team News

Klopp will be without midfielders Fabinho and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, as well as defenders Joel Matip and Dejan Lovren. This makes it easy to guess that Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez will again be paired up at the back, but it’s a different situation in midfield, where the boss has plenty of options.

He went with Jordan Henderson, Georginio Wijnaldum and Naby Keita in the win over Leicester on Boxing Day, but he’s likely to apply some rotation here due to the short time-span between the two games. Perhaps not all of them, but at least one or two of James Milner, Xherdan Shaqiri and Adam Lallana are likely to be thrown into the mix, while upfront, Divock Origi might also be given a start.

Wolverhampton Wanderers

If Klopp has done a wonderful job at Liverpool, nothing short of that can be said of Nuno Espirito Santo and the things he has accomplished with the Wolves. He has created a truly formidable contingent based on his compatriots, with Ruben Neves and Joao Moutinho running the show from the middle, and Diogo Jota joined in attack by Mexican Raul Jimenez. Let’s not forget Rui Patricio in goal.

His defence is marshaled by former Liverpool player Conor Coady, the captain of the team. But there is a large number of excellent players in that squad, and to make just a short reference to all of them would make a very long read indeed. Suffices to say that it’s no coincidence that they’ve now done a league double over defending champions Manchester City, and that the fifth place they now occupy in the league is well deserved.

Team News

Espirito Santo cannot count on the services of defender Wily Boly, who is out for a long time with an ankle injury, while midfielder Morgan Gibbs-White has a lower-back problem which is also keeping him out.

Conclusion

Despite the quality of this Wolves team, it still falls short compared to that of the European and world champions, so if you’re looking to make a bet on who wins the contest, you probably want to back Liverpool. However, with the hectic schedule and the rotation likelihood in mind, it might just happen that there aren’t many goals in this one.

Verdict: Total goals under 2.5

Best odds: 7/5

Bookmaker: 888sport