Prediction: Chelsea vs Liverpool

5th February 2011

There will be mixed feelings for Fernando Torres as he prepares to wear the Chelsea shirt against his former teammates, and that is just one of the things that make this tie so special. With both teams high on confidence after notching up a couple of wins in a row, we are likely to see an entertaining game at Stamford Bridge.

Just as Chelsea fans have started to fear that Roman Abramovich has lost interest in the club and that he doesn’t plan to invest more money into the squad, the Russian billionaire prepared attractive gifts for the Blues fans in the shape of Fernando Torres and David Luiz, who arrived to Stamford Bridge on one of the most interesting deadline days in Premier League history. With Chelsea returning to the right track after going through a rough patch and Manchester United losing at Wolves, the Blues now have a great chance to close their gap behind the title rivals as well as pour more misery on Liverpool. Fernando Torres is expected to start against his former club after Carlo Ancelotti said the Spaniard was compatible with Didier Drogba, while David Luiz is likely to start on the bench. Alex, Benayoun and Zhirkov are out injured.

Anfield, too, was a busy place on deadline day and few days before, but if Liverpool fans were disappointed to see Fernando Torres join Chelsea, they were certainly happy with the captures of Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez, especially after the Uruguayan scored on his debut. Three successive victories have propelled the Reds to 7th place in the standings, which is the highest they have been this season and there is no doubt Kenny Dalglish’s men will be looking to show Torres he made the wrong decision when choosing to join Chelsea. The absolutely mad formation with four centre-backs, two full-backs and no strikers that we have seen against Stoke somehow produced results, although it was not before Luis Suarez replaced Fabio Aurelio that Liverpool became a real threat in the opponent’s half. The Uruguayan seems to have already earned a starting place, which, in all fairness, wasn’t that hard to achieve, but Andy Carroll will have to wait some more to be handed a debut. Joe Cole and Christian Poulsen are injury doubts, while Jay Spearing is definitely out.

Conclusion

Having stabilized their form and added Torres and Luiz to the squad, Chelsea have got to be considered favourites here, and even though online bookmakers have underestimated Liverpool, my advice is to back the Blues as they should prevail in this clash. Don’t go crazy with the stake, though.

Verdict: Home win Chelsea (1)

Best Odds: 8/13

Bookmaker: 888Sport