Liverpool – Cardiff, Premier League Prediction

The things at Liverpool go very well. Luckily, the Reds do not have very serious injuries except Chamberlain. Henderson will only miss this match and Keita is expected to be on the bench. The Reds smashed Red Star with a 4-0, which was expected and they even saved a lot of power. First place in the Champions League group and second place with the same points with City in the EPL for the Merseyside team. The plan for less aggressive play and conditional energy savings for the second half of the season + taking the valuable and minimal needed results, is going perfectly right now. Liverpool has not conceded a goal in the Premier League at home since February and now they are absolutely obliged to defeat Cardiff, who are one of the weakest teams in the league, because the next round is going to be a heavy one visiting Emirates vs. Arsenal.

Cardiff finally managed to record a win after five consecutive losses. It came against Fulham in Wales after a goal show and 4-2 for the hosts. Indeed, a fairly open match, but now Cardiff will be visiting a stadium they have never won at in the Premier League era. In their only one season in the Premier League 4 years ago, Cardiff recorded only 2 away victories for the entire campaign, then finished last and got relegated. The fact that Liverpool has not conceded a goal for so long is not good news for blue birds, because they have only scored 1 goal in their last 6 away games in EPL. It was against Chelsea when they lost 1-4 from the London team.

During the week it was easy to see, even at 50% or less of their abilities, Liverpool could destroy teams at Anfield who are hardly near the Reds quality. For sure, Klopp’s approach will be similar. The goal of the Reds is to raise the tempo several times in the match and to score goals in these moments against Cardiff in order to demotivate them so the three points go back to Liverpool. It happened already with Southampton, before West Ham in the first round, and Crvena Zvezda was the last one to suffer. Only Brighton somehow managed to lose only 1-0, but it was in the third round and Cardiff’s defense is much weaker than Brighton’s one. Here our prediction is quite reasonable: Liverpool Over 2.5 goals at 1.62