Oli Nixon has picked out a 7/1 bet builder tip for Sunday's clash between Liverpool & Tottenham.
Liverpool v Tottenham
15/2 Bet Builder Tip (1pt)
Liverpool to score o2.5 goals
At the time of writing, Igor Tudor is still in post as Spurs boss and there’s no sign of the board pulling the trigger on his miserable tenure. Therefore, we simply have to be on Liverpool goals in this game, given that the North London club have shipped 14 goals in just four games under his stewardship and with reports of a mutinous dressing room and a plethora of individual errors at the back, it only looks likely to continue. The visitors are also missing Micky Van de Ven to suspension and possibly his central defensive partner Cristian Romero with a concussion which only makes their task of keeping Liverpool at bay even more difficult.
Arne Slot’s men have scored 19 goals in their last five games at Anfield across all competitions, landing this bet in four of those. Last time out in league action they hit West Ham for five and they also put four past Newcastle recently so this is a frontline that is beginning to fire. The hosts also have an excellent record in this fixture, netting at least four goals in each of Tottenham’s last four visits to Merseyside and given the state of their opponents, another comfortable victory looks on the cards.
Midnite
Virgil van Dijk to score anytime
If Liverpool are to rack up the goals, it makes sense to get one of their players on side for goals and with three goals in his last seven league starts, the man in form is Virgil van Dijk. The Reds have seen a huge uptick in their output from attacking set plays since the departure of set piece coach Aaron Briggs and their captain has been the main beneficiary, regularly finding himself free in the opposition box with a sight of goal. He’s got previous in this fixture too having bagged in the EFL Cup against Spurs at Anfield last season so will be licking his lips at the arrival of their depleted defence.
As mentioned already, Tottenham could well be without their best two aerial defenders and their record defending dead ball situations is also grim reading. They’ve giving up the fourth highest expected goals from restarts of any team in the Premier League at 0.48 per game even with Romero and Van de Ven in the side and you only have to look at Robin Le Normand’s goal from a corner against them in midweek to imagine how van Dijk can take advantage of their flimsy defending.
Alexis Mac Allister to make o1.5 tackles
For all their defensive issues under Tudor, Spurs do still pose a threat going forward and looking through their data, something that stands out is that they force an incredibly high number of tackles from opposition central midfielders. Across their last 15 matches in all competitions, opposition players in the middle of the park have made a whopping 89 tackles with 26 of those midfielders making at least two dispossessions.
Alexis Mac Allister averages more tackles than any other player in the Liverpool squad at 1.93 per 90. The Argentine midfielder needs no encouragement to get stuck in and across his last seven league starts has won possession 21 times, making at least two tackles in six of those matches. In this fixture last season, he made seven tackles and having also made at least two in each of his four prior starts against Spurs, we can rely on him to fly into the challenges again.
