LIVERPOOL travel to Portugal on Tuesday in the Champions League to face Porto. Daniel McCulloch (@DMcCulloch1984) shares his favourite fancies.
Porto vs Liverpool | Tuesday 28th September 2021, 20:00 | BT Sport
Liverpool head to Portugal on Tuesday night looking to make it two wins out of two in what looks like a tough Champions League group.
Jurgen Klopp’s men beat AC Milan in an enthralling encounter in their first game in this season’s competition and I do not see them taking a backward step when they play Porto.
Scoreline-wise, I have struggled to nail Liverpool this season. I didn’t expect such an open encounter when they faced Milan at Anfield and six goals in their game against Brentford came as a big surprise given that they had only conceded one goal in their first five league fixtures of the season and their opponents matches had only featured seven in total.
With this in mind, I have avoided the outright market and hopefully found a goalscorer instead. That man is Sadio Mane, who has been in fine form this season. Mane has had 25 shots in the Premier League so far this season (joint most with Mo Salah and Michail Antonio), has scored three times (with an expected total of over four) and has pretty fond memories of matches at the Estadio do Dragao.
Mane has played their twice since 2017 and scored four goals across those games. Porto haven’t got great record against English sides at home recently either. Their only positive result was a 0-0 stalemate with Manchester City while Liverpool have scored nine against them in two games and Chelsea also beat them 2-0 last term.
It is no surprise that Mo Salah heads the betting, but I don’t think Mane should be 17/10 when Salah is just 6/5 and I think the Senegalese is the value in this particular market.
Best Bets
Porto vs Liverpool – Sadio Mane to score anytime (17/10 SkyBet)
