This match may still have a huge impact on the title race even though Man City currently find themselves 17 points behind the league leaders. With recent draws against Everton and Aston Villa, Liverpool have given hope to Arsenal in second and the Gunners may only be 5 points behind by the time this match kicks off.
City are certainly going to have to channel the performance they showed in tearing Newcastle apart last weekend rather than the more abject displays that they have been guilty of since the end of last year. Omar Marmoush scored a sensational first half hattrick to show that he is more than capable of playing at Premier League level and simultaneously easing the goalscoring burden that Erling Haaland seems to have been shouldering of late.
Despite keeping a clean sheet against Newcastle, Real Madrid scoring six over two legs shows that City can be got at by quality opposition. New signing Abdukodir Khusanov had another torrid time on Tuesday night and may do again against the likes of Cody Gakpo or Luis Diaz. City will hope that Nico Gonzalez can be pivotal in plugging the midfield and stopping attacks getting through but in an open game you would fancy Liverpool to make chances.
The race for the top four is still wide open with many teams still within striking distance. Any team that put together a decent run of results could easily put themselves into a strong position and a win for City here would certainly be a big statement of intent to back up their result from last week.
As mentioned, Liverpool have stuttered slightly in terms of results in the league and have also recently suffered defeats in the Carabao Cup, FA Cup and Champions League. More worrying than this for fans is that there have been signs of performances dipping significantly as well and in the last two games particularly they have struggled to make anywhere near the number of clear cut chances that they were doing previously.
Mo Salah has been the obvious standout with both goals and assists flowing freely but even he hasn’t been at his best in terms of overall performance. It is far too early for tiredness to kick in regardless of how many games have been played. Arne Slot will need to find a way to revitalise his squad to get them back to their best.
He will be hoping that Gakpo is able to return for this game as his form has been the most consistent of the non-Salah forwards as Jota and Diaz have struggled for consistency and Darwin Nunez continues to be an enigma, saving the team one week yet making horrendous errors the week after. The fans seem to love him still but patience is running thin.
Verdict
This may seem like sitting on the fence a little but with the current patchy form of both teams it is somewhat understandable that the algorithm has struggled to pick a clear winner. Regardless of the current situation, these two teams have arguably been the best in the last 7 or so years in the Premier League and on their day can beat anyone.
In terms purely of numbers, City are given a 42% likelihood of winning as the home team and Liverpool 30% as the away team. It must be taken into account that Liverpool are unbeaten away in the league all season and are on a total undefeated streak of 21 league games.
Probably due to these reasons, the bookies actually have Liverpool as the slight favourites, giving them odds of 11/8 compared to City’s 19/10.
Perhaps the draw at 28% likelihood may be something to look into.
