Can Liverpool Win the Champions League?
It was a strong week for English teams in the Champions League last week with Tottenham Hotspur coming from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 away at Juventus and Manchester City beating Basel 4-0 away from home as well. Liverpool stole the show on Wednesday night though as they hammered Porto 5-0 at Estádio do Dragão in a hugely impressive display of attacking football. The ‘Thrilling Three’ were in scintillating form once again as Sadio Mane grabbed a hat trick along with goals apiece for Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino.
Following the game, Liverpool reportedly received half of all outright winner’s bets placed on the Champions League, with punters clearly believing that Jurgen Klopp’s side can go on and win this year’s competition. Liverpool have now come down to 9/1 (Coral) to win the competition and even at those odds, The Reds could still be worth a punt.
On their day this Liverpool can beat anyone, as they showed by being the only English side to beat Manchester City this season. Their main problem in the last two seasons has been in defence, but the £75m January signing of Virgil van Dijk from Southampton, coupled with Loris Karius coming back into the side in goal appear to have settled things in that department. At the other end of the pitch, Liverpool boast one of the most fearsome attacks in Europe at the moment in the shape of Roberto Firmino, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane. Those three players have now scored 63 goals between them, with Salah grabbing 30 of those. Liverpool have scored seven goals on two occasions already this season and it remains to be seen whether even the best defences in the world could cope with those three players on top form.
English teams certainly have a strong chance in this year’s competition and when you consider there are still five of them left in it, the 11/8 available on an English team to win it looks like a great bet. Will that be Liverpool? I would definitely rate them as having the best chance behind Manchester City, and the bookies certainly agree with that. You still never know quite which Liverpool team are going to turn up on the day, but they’ve definitely become more consistent in recent weeks and even without Philipe Coutinho, they still have the tools at their disposal to beat anyone on their day.