Premier League Big Match Focus: How to back a 7/1 bet builder in Tottenham v Liverpool

• Reds playing catch-up
• Spurs' injury worries
• One-sided head-to-head
• Expect few goals

Tottenham and Liverpool are due to meet in north London on Sunday after sealing their place in the last 16 of the Champions League, but the two have had rather different seasons.

Jürgen Klopp's side won five games out of six but it still wasn't enough for them to top their group, with Napoli's 20 4-1 victory back in September giving them a head-to-head advantage. Spurs, meanwhile, needed just 11 points to squeeze through ahead of Eintracht Frankfurt, Sporting CP and Marseille.

Spurs have an advantage over their opponents in the league, too, sitting 10 points ahead of a Liverpool team coming off back-to-back defeats for the first time in 19 months. Extending that advantage on Sunday, however, may be easier said than done.

Injury issues

Spurs' draw with Liverpool at the end of last season played a big part in the Merseyside club falling short in their title bid. Son Heung-min gave Antonio Conte's team the lead at Anfield, only for Luis Díaz to level things up.

There's every chance neither of the scorers will be involved on Sunday. Díaz has been out for some time, and is unlikely to return until after the World Cup, while an injury suffered by Son against Marseille on Tuesday has put his involvement in jeopardy.

Without the South Korea forward, and with other attacking players absent through injury, Spurs could be up against it. And their recent record against Liverpool doesn't bode well even without that setback.

The last nine meetings between the sides in the Premier League have brought six Liverpool victories and three draws. Mauricio Pochettino was still Spurs' manager the last time they ended up on the winning side, with top scorer Harry Kane netting twice in a 4-1 victory at Wembley.

Late drama

Back in December 2020, Liverpool left it very late to beat Spurs, with Roberto Firmino delivering a last-minute winner. The two sides went into that game first and second in the table - Liverpool overtook their opponents with the victory - and was the last time the Londoners sat above Klopp's team ahead of a league meeting.

This fixture is a Bet 5 Get match which means if you place a £5 Bet Builder on the match you can get a free £5 bet upon settling.

Both teams are very familiar with late goals, though, with 90th-minute efforts settling their most recent league games. It was good news for Tottenham, with Rodrigo Bentancur completing a comeback against Bournemouth in stoppage time, but Liverpool were dealt a killer late blow when Crysencio Summerville netted a late winner for Leeds United at Anfield.

Slow starters

As well as conceding late last time out, Liverpool have been no strangers to conceding early. This may help explain their return of 16 points from 12 games, their lowest ever tally at this stage under Klopp.

Only two teams, Southampton and West Ham, have conceded the first goal more often than the Reds this term. Rodrigo's early effort against Leeds was the eighth time they've conceded first, while it's also happened in European games against Napoli and Rangers.

Speaking of slow starts, five away league games for the Reds have brought no victories. You have to go all the way back to the 2006-07 season to find the last time they went longer without an away league victory, when Rafa Benitez's team had to wait until December - and a 4-0 victory at Wigan - to get fully up and running away from their home fortress.

Tottenham Hotspur v Liverpool prediction

Liverpool have already lost more games in all competitions this season than they did in the entirety of the 2021-22 campaign. Antonio Conte would love to be the man who leaves the Reds having lost more league games than they've won, but the prospect of a Spurs attack without Son, Richarlison and Dejan Kulusevski doesn't make for exciting reading.

While one or more of those forwards could feature, it wouldn't be a surprise to see a lower-scoring game. Liverpool kept a rare clean sheet during the week, becoming only the second team this term to stop Napoli from scoring.

This is a Bet 5 Get 5 game, and one of the bet builders we like the look of involves Firmino. You can back less than 2.5 goals, but with the Brazilian scoring or assisting, at 7.94.