England - Premier League: Arsenal vs Liverpool Arsenal have virtually dropped from the title race having lost to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and they are now in a position to worry about their Champions League place. The victory in the Merseyside derby, although undeserved, will serve as a major boost for the Reds, who are looking to cement the fourth place in the standings with a good result at the Emirates.
Not good enough
Even though Arsenal have played some great football this season despite all the problems they have had, the derby games against their title rivals have shown the Gunners are simply not ready to mount a serious title challenge. After the disappointing defeat at home to Manchester United, Arsene Wenger’s team were easily beaten by Chelsea as well and the fans have every reason to feel aggrieved about team’s recent performances. The players are now in very poor spirits before the Liverpool game and seeing the Gunners scored just one goal in their last three games, our advice is to back Arsenal to score under 1.5 goals at 1.67 offered by Sportingbet.
After making a couple of substitute appearances, Nicklas Bendtner could be in line for his first start after the lengthy spell on the sidelines, while Wenger is likely to make a couple of more changes after the disappointing performance against Chelsea. Denilson and Thomas Rosicky are pushing for the starting places, whereas Theo Walcott and Samir Nasri are facing the chop.
Liverpool won the Merseyside derby
Despite the fact they had to play with ten men for almost an hour and that they were pegged back to their own half for most of the match, Liverpool managed to win the Merseyside derby and the Reds thus continued the impressive run of results. Rafa Benitez’s team have shown a lot of improvement lately, mostly in defence having kept four successive clean sheets and they are now looking to make life difficult for Arsenal. The Reds are set to adopt a cautious approach as they would probably be happy even with one point from the Emirates and we expect to see a very tight game, especially in the first period. Hence, betting on under 1.5 goals in the first half at 1.41 offered by Expekt looks like the right thing to do.
Sotiris Kyrgiakos is suspended following the red card he picked in his first Merseyside derby, whereas Glen Johnson, Fernando Torres and Yossi Benayoun remain sidelined. Rafa Benitez is unlikely to make big changes to the starting line-up after the good performance at Anfield and we should only see Martin Skrtel coming in for suspended Kyrgiakos.
Betting verdict
Arsenal players are in very poor spirits after losing successive derby games and they will struggle to break Liverpool’s defence that hasn’t conceded in last four games. Rafa Benitez’s side will not be pushing forward too hard but they will rather defend in numbers and we, therefore, recommend betting on under 2.5 goals.
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