Champions League Betting: Why Liverpool and Manchester City fear their Achilles heel

Stephen Tudor
02 April 2018

Jurgen Klopp has one eye on making history

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Stephen Tudor prepares for a memorable Champions League goal-fest that history tells us will end 1-0...

"It’s a ferocious thriller that pits the two main contenders for this season’s Player of the Year in Mo Salah and Kevin De Bruyne into direct combat; phenomenal talents who are miles clear in the goal-scoring and assists charts respectively."

This Saturday Manchester City host a neighbour who cast them in shadow for a generation and more. It's a neighbour whose long era of dominance was accompanied throughout by a banner that hung from the Stretford End openly mocking City's irrelevance to them; finding hilarity in their struggle. It's a neighbour who frankly every supporter of a Blue persuasion hates right down to their marrow.

It simply cannot be under-sold then how much is at stake this weekend with the opportunity to secure a league title against this archest of foes. For a Blue it doesn't get any more potentially perfect and meaningful than that. It's a derby against Manchester United that comes along once every blue moon.

Yet here's the ludicrous kicker: it's not even City's biggest game this week.

That looms this Wednesday evening under the Anfield lights in a momentous Champions League quarter final tussle between two sides whose previous comings together this season have left even neutrals spellbound and drained by their unrelenting intensity and abundance of goals.

It was a match-up that neither fan-base wanted yet every one of the reasons as to why can equally explain the electricity that immediately followed the draw being made. An aggregate of 8-4 from those league encounters suggests that a high-scoring classic is imminent and the promise of goals is only heightened by Liverpool and Manchester City's combined tally of 237 across all competitions. A staggering haul.

Furthermore it's a ferocious thriller that pits the two main contenders for this season's Player of the Year in Mo Salah and Kevin De Bruyne into direct combat; phenomenal talents who are miles clear in the goal-scoring and assists charts respectively. On the touchline meanwhile heralds a fascinating thirteenth and fourteenth tactical duel between two of the most frenzied and brilliant coaches the Premier League have ever been blessed with. (For the record Klopp presently has the upper hand with six wins to five).

Yet as enthralling as these facets are they're mere sub-plots to the shared bigger picture and it is here where both sets of fans have legitimate cause to chew their fingernails to the quick.

Ultimate success in this tournament would vindicate Jurgen Klopp's three-year tenure at Liverpool that has undeniably plugged Anfield back into the mains yet is still trophyless. Having so far blitzed their way across the continent now only five games and three opponents stand between the Reds and the adding to an unparalleled European pedigree and had it been Roma or Sevilla scheduled to visit Merseyside this week it would have been very easy to imagine their momentum continuing. Instead though it's City, the team that stylishly dismantled them back in September with a performance that made everybody sit up and take notice of their budding brilliance.

Reds have the edge

As for City their fantastical football this term is surely deserving of a more enduring legacy than a league title and dads telling their sons in years to come of what a great watch they were. A Champions League gives them that immortality and more so it's a competition that the club's hierarchy have defined their progress by since the takeover in 2008. Had they been paired up with Roma or Sevilla the semis would surely have beckoned but instead it's Liverpool, the only side to beat them during this campaign when at full strength and at full pelt. That buries a doubt into a team psyche that is otherwise supremely confident in their abilities. It suggests that Liverpool have their number.

That is why the fan-bases reacted to the draw with nervous excitement that bordered on the apocalyptic. It's because each club is the other's Achilles heel.

If that reduces this potentially seminal and very possibly unforgettable encounter to a coin flip in terms of predicting its outcome we can at least expect a fusillade of goals to rain in with both teams going for broke in the same exhilarating manner that resulted in a 4-3 last January. Right? Well, not necessarily.

Goals not guaranteed

As highlighted in our historical preview of Liverpool v Manchester City earlier this year there has been a surprising lack of goals in this fixture when you look beyond 2017/18 and when the tense, magnified importance of the occasion and away goals are factored in suddenly there is value to be found in betting counter-intuitively.

Every instinct tells us that Liverpool will throw the proverbial kitchen sink at the champions-elect, inspired by a feverish atmosphere the likes of which is unique to English football. Yet those same instincts told us similar two years ago in the league only for Klopp to pull the rug out from our feet, stifle the midfield, and nullify City's attacking threat. Liverpool won that day 1-0 and what the German coach wouldn't give for an identical result this Wednesday can be counted on one hand.

The 7/2 available for under 1.5 goals then is a shrewd option.

When it comes to drama however, and excitement and tension, thankfully such things cannot be gauged and priced up. Because if they were all bets would be off. This could and should be an absolute firecracker.