Both sides where heavily tipped to challenge Chelsea for the title this year but after indifferent starts both find themselves up against it with only a quarter on the season played. Their respective managers will know deep down that a defeat here will really dispel any hope they had of closing the gap on Man Utd and Chelsea.
At the time of writing Liverpool lie in eighth place eleven points off the leaders with a real mountain to climb. However they have made some inroads recently and some would argue they have turned the corner with four wins in their last 4 home games, scoring a massive 12 goals (aver 3 per game). But the key to those successes has been the fact they were at Anfield. Of their opening 11 league games their home and away form couldn’t be further apart. Home – W5 D1 L0, Away W0 D1 L4.
As you can see the Reds are yet to win on their travels in the Premiership and this is certainly not title challenging form. Based on this and their recent poor record at Arsenal (P6 L4 D2) the layers have them around the 11/4 mark to get one over their arch rivals, but at that price they are still bound to attract some decent bets.
On the other hand there is probably not a better time to play the Gunners as they seem to be in a mini slump. Their last two home games have both resulted in draws and the last three in all competitions they have found the net just once!
The bookmakers still make them around 11/10 in the betting to land all three points and although it is sometimes dangerous to oppose one of the big four after a run of poor results that price looks too skinny to me.
So in a game both sides can’t afford to lose the draw at odds of 9/4 is by far the safest option, with the half-time/full-
In the scoring markets the main things to note is the fact that Luis Garcia netted in both fixtures last season, while he’s also been on target three times in Liverpool’s last three matches. While for Arsenal Henry also has a decent record in this fixture scoring twice in it last season and getting a hat-trick back in 2004.
