How much will Liverpool miss Alisson?
Talk about the best-laid plans of mice and men. Jurgen Klopp will have spent most of the summer wondering if an improvement on his team’s 21 Premier League clean sheets last term could be the difference between not winning the league, or going on to do just that.
The cause certainly wasn’t helped by Alisson’ s freak injury against Norwich, ruling him out for an estimated three to four weeks, hurting his calf while taking a goal kick. He may only have been on the pitch for 38 minutes but he made two excellent saves in that time to remind us all of what a key part of their success (in all competitions) he was last term.
In fairness to his stand-in Adrian, he’s a fine keeper with plenty of experience at this level who’d probably get a game week-in-week-out at just about any club in the bottom half of the table. But the Spanish keeper was powerless to stop Norwich from scoring and there are further concerns for Klopp because there’s no understudy of any note in the squad for Adrian.
It’s all enough to make you want to turn your nose up at the 11/10 that Liverpool keep a clean sheet at Southampton, especially after the Reds’ Wednesday night exertions in the European Supercup.
Great Dane back to Spurs’ starting line-up
It’s been a staple of Premier League viewing over the past few years. Stylish Danish play-maker Christian Eriksen spraying passes around, taking shots from in or around the penalty box and delivering beautiful deliveries from set-pieces.
His potential for scoring or assisting goals certainly isn’t lost on an army of Fantasy Football managers, either. Managers those who will have been disappointed at the fact that he didn’t start for Spurs last weekend, playing just 26 minutes at the end.
That probably had a lot to do with a potential summer transfer with Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United talked about as possible destinations, resulting in him not being in the right state of mind to start a Premier League game after not knowing for the best part of the summer where he’d be playing this campaign.
With the transfer window in England now firmly shut, he’s certainly not going to United. It’s still open in Spain but whereas a move to one of Spain’s two footballing giants isn’t completely out of the equation just yet, odds of just 1/7 on Eriksen staying put (in the Eriksen transfer specials market) suggests that ship has sailed, for the time being at least.
It all means things should go back to normality and that should mean a start for him on Saturday at Man City, given he’s had another week of training under his belt, not to mention the absences of attacking duo Dele Alli (injured) and Heung-Min Son (suspension).
It’s not the easiest of games, though, to put it mildly. If 8/1 outsiders Spurs are to get anything from their trip to the Etihad, you’d think a big performance from Eriksen will be needed.
Frenemies at Goodison Park
There will be plenty of familiarity when Everton host Watford on Saturday afternoon. Not to mention, some contempt.
Everton do after all have the Hornets’ former manager in their dug-out, in addition to the most talented player to have rocked up at Vicarage Road over the last five years or so, in Richarlison.
Admittedly the Brazilian forward didn’t come cheap and Marco Silva had been sacked by Watford before joining the Toffees; but still.
Both teams suffered disappointment in their opening day fixtures, Everton mustering a 0-0 draw at Crystal Palace after going into the match as favourites (albeit going down to ten men) and Watford providing the upset of the round when losing 3-0 at home to Brighton.
It should be an entertaining match. Nine of the last 13 matches between these in all competitions have gone over 2.5 goals with the last eight featuring two 3-2s and two 2-2s. It’s just 13/20 we get at least three goals this time round as well.
Favourites may not have it all their own way this weekend
It was a horrendous opening weekend for the Betfair Sportsbook and layers of favourites on the Betfair Exchange. All of Liverpool, Man Utd, Man City, Spurs and Arsenal won as jollies to also reward acca players up and down the country who put the country’s best-known teams together in their weekend coupons.
It may not be so straightforward for the favourites this time around. Or at least that’s what the layers will be hoping for.
Man Utd have a tough trip to Wolves, Liverpool are away at Southampton and even Chelsea will have to work hard for a home win over a solid-looking Leicester.
That might be the one where you’d really want to take on a heavy favourite with Chelsea [1.84] to overcome Frank Lampard’s inexperience at this level, their midweek trip to Istanbul to play Liverpool and a long injury list… to take all three points.
Dani could spell danger for Burnley
Eriksen isn’t the only silky-skilled playmaker at a north London club this season.
It may have cost Arsenal an arm and a leg to get Dani Ceballos on loan for the season but it could well be worth it. With the resident ‘Number 10s’ Mesut Ozil and Henrikh Mkhitarayan each having more issues at the moment than we’d care to list, the Spanish youngster may quickly find himself at the front of the queue when it comes to being tasked with being Arsenal’s chief creator.
Curiously, he played the same 26 minutes that Eriksen did last week but like the Dane, he would well start this time round. Despite Burnley’s excellent 3-0 win first up last week, Arsenal will fancy their chances here. If you fancy the Real Madrid star’s chances, he’s 4/1 to score anytime.
Source: Betfair Premier League
