The home side are coming from a terrible performance, where they failed to outperform last season’s 12th place team, Swansea. In the fixture at Liberty Stadium Chelsea got their lead by an early goal from Costa (18′), but lost the lead in first 15 minutes of the second half. Chelsea has conceived 2 quick goals in 59′ and 62′ thus giving the home side a lead (2:1). The visitors tried their best to get their lead back, but only managed to equalize in 81′ with the second goal from Diego Costa. Despite controlling most of the match “The Blues” left the stadium in a disappointment, as more was expected from them. Chelsea now sits at 2nd position with 10 points (3W-1D-0L).
My opinion about Chelsea this season is, they improved compared to last season, with 2 of their key players (Costa and Hazard) “waking up”. It just might be due to a new coach (Conte) who has utilized their potential and we can expect them to make their presence seen in the upcoming match. Next fixture will be against Liverpool, which will arguably be the hardest match played for Chelsea this season.
Missing players for the home side are John Terry and Zouma. Still, Conte’s squad will hope to utilize their home advantage to walk away from this fixture with a win.
Liverpool are currently at 6th position in the league (2W-1D-1L). There were ups and downs in their recent performances. One day they can beat Arsenal (3:4) and last season champions Leicester (4:1), but then they will lose against Burnley (2:0). Still, with those two performances they showed they will have a chance to finish this season in a decent position.
As for missing players, Sakho and Gomez are still out, whereas we can expect Lovren to return. Emre Can has been training with his team, but it’s still unsure if he is fit enough after his ankle injury.
VERDICT
Either win this one, as it’s too hard to call a outright winner. Both of the teams are capable of scoring goals and have some problems in the defence. With that in mind it should be a high scoring match and a bet of over 2.75 has good value.
Prediction: Over 2.75
Odds: 1.98 Pinnacle (Premium members were able to bet on better odds)
