Liverpool v Chelsea – UEFA Super Cup Betting Preview and Prediction
Two titans of European football are set to clash on August 14th in the UEFA Super Cup, which just like any year before pairs the champions of Europa League and winners of Champions League. This year, the Super Cup will welcome two old enemies, Liverpool and Chelsea, who both proved their worth in their competitions, however, they still need to overcome one last obstacle to be considered the best in Europe. Below you can check out our betting preview along with our betting prediction for the upcoming UEFA Super Cup match.
Liverpool eyeing 4th Super Cup title
In their long history, Liverpool took a shot at Super Cup 5 times and came out on top 3 times (1977, 2001, 2005), which makes them 4th most successful team in the competition, only trailing Barcelona (5 titles), Milan (5 titles) and Real Madrid (4 titles). As a team which has impressed with their performances in the UCL and EPL, Liverpool will look to continue with their legacy and hope to establish themselves as a European powerhouse once more in the upcoming season. While a single UCL title does not make any team truly superior to others, Liverpool did manage to appear in the UCL finals for the second consecutive time in 2019 and will look to make it 3 in a row in 2019/20 as well. But before we get ahead of ourselves, the Reds still have the whole 2019/20 season ahead of them, which they hope will be able to start the best possible way by proving their worth against Chelsea. That however might not be as simple as it seems as the Blues have been phenomenal last season and will now look to win their 2nd Super Cup title and the first one after 21 long years.
Chelsea hoping to build on their 2018/19 season
Chelsea have had quite an impressive campaign last season. They finished 3rd in the EPL and even managed to grab their 2nd Europa League title by humiliating Arsenal 4:1 in the finals. While the Blues were nowhere near Liverpool and Man City on the EPL standings, the team still performed admirably well and will look to even further improve in 2019/20 season and possibly even try to contest the league title. For that to happen, however, Chelsea will have to outperform both Liverpool and Man City, both of which proved to be far superior to Chelsea last season. Will they manage to improve upon last season and stand up to the top dogs of EPL yet to be seen, nonetheless, the Super Cup fixture will prove to be a great opportunity for us to see how the “new and improved” Chelsea performs against 2018/19 EPL runners-up.
No changes for Liverpool, new faces in Chelsea
Liverpool is one of the teams that seem to have it all. They boast with a great coach and exceptional players which proved to be enough for them to win their 6th UCL title in the history of the club and the first one in 14 years. The Reds have come a long way in the past couple of years and from the looks of it, they are not going to stop anytime soon. While most of the football teams entered the summer transfer with a long list of players they wanted to sign, Liverpool remained relatively silent and passive. As it stands now, their only signing was the young centre-back Sepp van den Berg, who is not expected to play a crucial role in the team next season, nor any season in the near future. Their lack of signings might come off as a surprise, however, the old saying “don’t fix it if it’s not broken” suits their situation perfectly. Liverpool has a good team, which quite frankly they do not need to change anything in it. At the end of the day, they won the Champions League and only missed the EPL title by 1 point. It does not get much better than that.
On the other side, Chelsea are enjoying quite the opposite experience in the transfer window, at least to some degree. Not only has their star player Hazard left for Real Madrid, but Chelsea also waved goodbye to Maurizio Sarri and welcomed the club legend Frank Lampard as their new head coach.
Seeing how Chelsea failed to stay up to par with Liverpool and Man City last season, we could expect them to make a few transfer moves, however, we have to remember, the Blues have been hit with a transfer ban, meaning they will not be able to sign any new players for the next two transfer windows. The only exception to that rule was Mateo Kovacic, who already had a contract with Chelsea before the summer. With no possibility to sign new players Chelsea rather recalled players on loans, which include Christian Pulisic who returned from a loan at Borussia and Tiemoué Bakayoko who came back from AC Milan.
Verdict & Prediction
On the paper, it’s Liverpool who come out ahead and it should be no different on the field either. There is no denying both teams are exceptional and worthy of praise following their impressive runs in the European competitions, but when it comes to picking out a winner between the two, Liverpool come out miles ahead. A quick look at last season’s EPL standings reveals Liverpool ended the season whole 25 points ahead of Chelsea, which does not need a special explanation of how absurdly high 25 points is. Now, if we consider Liverpool made no significant changes to the squad during summer and that Chelsea lost not only their star player Hazard but also Sarri as a head coach, which was replaced by inexperienced Lampard, it’s safe to say the gap between the two teams further increased rather than decreased. All thing considered, this fixture will be a struggle for Chelsea and the first and possibly one of the hardest tests for Frank Lampard and his coaching capabilities.
We expect Liverpool to win this one with relative ease and kick off the 2019/20 season with another silverware. Additionally, we can’t ignore history, which suggests Super Cup matches tend to be highly exciting and fast-paced, ending in quite a few goals. While have established why we believe Liverpool are superior to Chelsea, the Blues still have enough quality to get past Liverpool’s defence at least a couple of times and threaten the goal.
Prediction: Over 2.50 Goals
Odds: 1.78 Pinnacle
