This season's Champions League overachievers clash in the semi-finals, Liverpool host Roma at Anfield Road on Tuesday evening in the first leg of the tie that will decide which of the two teams will reach the final of Europe's most important club competition. The last time these two teams met in an European competition was all the way back in the 2001-2002 edition of the Champions League, it ended goalless in Rome before Liverpool won 2-0 at home. The two teams have also met in the final of this competition back in 1984 and Liverpool won that as well but they needed a penalty shoot-out to pull it off.
Liverpool are enjoying life at the moment, they are almost certain of their place in the Premier League top four, Mohamed Salah is breaking all kinds of scoring records and was also elected PFA Player of the Year, while the Champions League campaign is going better than anyone at the club might have expected. The Reds delivered masterpiece performances in the previous round to knock out Premier League champions Manchester City with an impressive 5-1 score on aggregate. Roberto Firmino, Andrew Robertson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Dejan Lovren and Alex Oxlade Chamberlain were rested for last weekend's 2-2 Premier League draw with West Brom, so they should return to the starting eleven on Tuesday.
Roma pulled off the biggest surprise of the season in the previous round, they were trailing 4-1 after the first leg against Barcelona but somehow they dominated the Catalan giants in the second leg and walked away with the 3-0 victory that they needed. Since then they won two of their three Serie A matches but are still locked in a tight battle with Lazio and Inter for the final two places in the Serie A top four. Aleksandar Kolarov, Alessandro Florenzi, Daniele De Rossi and Edin Dzeko were rested for last weekend's 3-0 victory at Spal, while Rick Karsdorp and Gregoire Defrel are the only injury concerns for the away side.
Probable line-ups:
Liverpool: Karius - Alexander-Arnold, Lovren, Van Dijk, Robertson - Chamberlain, Henderson, Milner - Salah, Firmino, Mane
Roma: Alisson - Fazio, Manolas, Jesus - Florenzi, Strootman, De Rossi, Nainggolan, Kolarov - Schick, Dzeko
My prediction: Liverpool to win 2-1.
Here are the odds for the match at Bet365:
Liverpool win - 1.53
Draw - 4.50
Roma win - 6.50
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Comments (1)
sharpe
04/24/18, 02:04:51 PM
It should be an exiting game tonight, For me Liverpool are the favourites and probably they would try to take a good advantage which would be at least 2 goal...
It should be an exiting game tonight, For me Liverpool are the favourites and probably they would try to take a good advantage which would be at least 2 goal lead I believe. I think they really improved in defence recently and although that's not their priority usually I guess this time Klopp would hope of a clean sheet too, won't be too easy against Roma fire power though. My guess is 4-1 Liverpool's way.
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