LIVERPOOL travel to Brighton on Saturday in the Premier League. Daniel McCulloch (@DMcCulloch1984) shares his favourite fancies.
Brighton vs Liverpool | Saturday 28th November 2020, 12:30 | BT Sport
It shows how much underlying data is used to price matches when Manchester City are 1/6 to beat Burnley while Liverpool are 8/11 to overcome Brighton.
Graham Potter’s side have been the Expected Goals (xG) darlings this season (as they were last), so it was somewhat ironic that they got the victory against Aston Villa despite losing this battle (1.77 vs 1.5).
A return of nine points from nine games does not do The Seagulls justice but I still generally find that they are generally too short a price. Whenever I watch them I feel that they are too easy to score against and also that for all their possession I am not sure how they are going to get behind sides.
Additionally, they are missing the pace of Tariq Lamptey this weekend and I think he would have caused real problems for Liverpool’s left side.
Liverpool were awful in defeat to Atalanta in midweek, losing 2-0 and failing to register a shot on target. However, that was a rare poor performance and it is worth remembering that they have won 15 of their last 23 games on their travels.
While they have only won one of four away matches this term, their loss against Aston Villa is unlikely to be seen again in decades and the other games were two drawn matches versus Manchester City and Everton and they were certainly comfortably the better side against Everton.
I expect those sides to finish well ahead of Brighton, which gives me even more confidence to take the 18/25 with Novibet on an away victory.
Given the number of injuries to key defenders that Liverpool have I could not put anyone off backing Liverpool and BTTS but my second bet is actually on Diogo Jota to score anytime.
The Portuguese international has already managed four Premier League goals and a Champions League hat-trick since he joined Jurgen Klopp’s side a couple of months ago but I am not sure even those stats do him justice.
He is averaging a goal every 96 minutes in the top flight at the minute, so the 17/10 with BetVictor on him finding the net anytime is excellent value in my view. He is now very much a starter for the champions and I expect him to cause this static Brighton backline pretty of problems.
Best Bets
Brighton vs Liverpool – Liverpool to win (18/25 Novibet)
Brighton vs Liverpool – Diogo Jota to score anytime (17/20 BetVictor)