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Liverpool – Augsburg and Lokomotiv – Fenerbahce 4/1 acca. Artur Petrosyan’s prediction
Winning Europa League seems to be the easiest path to the Champions League for Liverpool this season. Go past five opponents and you’re there. While getting to top four in the Premier League overtaking any of Leicester (+15 points), Spurs (+13), Arsenal (+13) or Man City (+9) with twelve games left, looks like a really hard task. Therefore, I expect Jurgen Klopp to take all the games remaining in this competition as serious as possible. Most of his players got a long-awaited rest on the weekend, some even getting two days off which seemed impossible for the past couple of months.
So Liverpool are supposed to be fresh and which is an important inventive in attack. With Sturridge and Coutinho back, the Reds look like a different team. Daniel provides the movement up front which was so much lacking for static Liverpool in most of the games this season.
Augsburg are well organized and will be tough to break down, but I believe Liverpool will do it. Taking the Klopp’s side to win at just 1.44 doesn’t seem too attractive, so I’ll go for “Liverpool to win 1-0, 2-0 or 2-1” at 2.50 with William Hill.
Lokomotiv are a troubled side in Russia at the moment. And it’s not just about the lack of any competitive matches for two months. They sold their only potent striker Oumar Niasse to Everton and couldn’t replace him with anyone in time to register for the Europa League. They’ve got all sorts of internal problems with their head coach Igor Cherevchenko not working well with the rest of his staff and some of the players waiting for his sack. Plus, that surely wasn’t a very wise decision for one of the team’s leaders Dmitri Tarasov to taunt Turkish fans with the image of Vladimir Putin on his t-shirt. He wanted some publicity and the status of a true patriot, but what he got was zero support from his own club, most of his teammates and the fans. Plus he got suspended for the second leg which is another blow to Lokomotiv.
I don’t think the Railway club can beat Fenerbahce. They might try hard in the first half, but after the interval, they’ll just wait for the game to end. Their physical condition allowed them to be alive for 60 minutes at best in the first game, and they’ll unlikely be much more active in the second. It’s not just in their legs, but more of in their heads. I’ll go with “Fenerbahce Draw No Bet” at 2.00 with William Hill.
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