Andy's Monday tips - Liverpool won't win

It's fair to say it's been a mixed bag from Liverpool since Kenny Dalglish took over. A wonderful home win against Manchester United and a shock away win at Chelsea were the highlights, while an exit in the Europa League at the hands of Braga and defeats against relegation strugglers West Brom and West Ham were amongst the lowlights.

So far, Andy Carroll hasn't made any sort of impact in a Liverpool shirt, but then again he has been working his way back to full fitness and neither has the man he replaced at Liverpool. It just goes to show that life at a new club is arguably harder for strikers than players in any other position.

After the bright start under Dalglish, there were even suggestions that Liverpool could make a late, late effort at securing a Champions League place but that looks very unlikely now and the best they can hope for is another Europa League place.

It's not all doom and gloom though and with Carroll finally fit, the England striker will have a few more matches at the back end of this season to try and form a good partnership with Luis Suarez. If the two of them manage to do that, they'll be eyeing up a big goals tally between them next season.

Manchester City haven't exactly been entertaining on the road this season against the big guns, nor have they been particularly good.

Roberto Mancini will argue that a point at the Emirates was a good one and that they probably deserved a draw at Old Trafford, which they would have got had it not been for Wayne Rooney's outrageous goal, but they lost 2-0 at Chelsea and, all in all, critics will say that the Italian boss has been just that little bit too conservative away from home.

The one man who can of course turn a 0-0 draw into a win is Carlos Tevez. Gareth Bale is all the rage in Betfair's PFA Player of the Year market but, for me, Tevez has been the most consistent player over the course of the season.

He's played up front by himself, he's played in a front two and in a front three and he's been, at worst, pretty good and, at best, unplayable. There have been problems at the club and Tevez been involved in a few of them himself but through it all he's maintained a superb level of performance and he's scored a lot of goals. He'd get my vote.

As far as this match is concerned, at the moment Manchester City are the slightly better team but Liverpool are at home, so the smart money is on a low-scoring draw.

Recommended Bets:
Back the draw at [3.3]
Back the 1-1 draw at [7.0]
Back Carlos Tevez to score at [2.8]

Andy Gray is now on Twitter so follow him for his exclusive tips and his take on the biggest stories in football each week.

Published: 11 Apr 2011

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