West Brom vs Liverpool Betting Tips (16/05/21) – Klopp Desperate to End Reds’ Bottom Half Blues

An outstanding performance at Old Trafford means that Liverpool’s hopes of a top-four finish are in their hands. The maths may hand Leicester and Chelsea the advantage, but remember that they play each other on Tuesday – one, if not both, will drop points. And so the door has been slammed open by Liverpool’s outstanding 4-2 victory over Manchester United on Thursday.

Whether the chaos of the protests before the game had shaken the Reds only they know, but Bruno Fernandes was afforded the freedom of Manchester to fire his side into a tenth minute lead.

But there’s been resilience and steel to Liverpool’s game of late, and they showed their fighting qualities to wrestle back control of the encounter in the first half – Diogo Jota, in for Sadio Mane on the left flank, netted the equaliser before Bobby Firmino gained the Reds the lead with a neatly-taken goal in injury time.

Another Firmino strike early in the second period handed the Reds a handsome two-goal cushion, and despite Marcus Rashford pulling one back in the 68th minute Liverpool were still creating chances and looking the more likely – Mo Salah’s breakaway goal late on securing all three points.

Amazingly, that was Jurgen Klopp’s first victory at Old Trafford as a manager. “I thought we had a good game; we were better tonight, so we won the game,” he said afterwards. “We caused them more problems, that’s why we won the game.”

With Leicester and Chelsea playing in the FA Cup final on Saturday, Liverpool have the chance to close the gap on the Blues to just one point if they can overcome West Brom on Sunday.

Liverpool Team News

In the end, Ozan Kabak just wasn’t fit enough to take to the field against United, and so the youthful duo of Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams were the central defensive pairing instead.

It wasn’t a flawless performance by any means, but the pair did just about enough at Old Trafford to convince Klopp they can be his first choice option for the rest of the season – enabling Fabinho to carry on in midfield where he is at his best.

There are no new injury issues – the likes of Kabak, James Milner and Naby Keita remain sidelined alongside the long-term absentees, and so Klopp’s decisions for this game are purely tactical.

To that end, there doesn’t appear any reason to change the starting eleven that took to the field at Old Trafford – that’s harsh on Mane, but it would be foolhardy perhaps to change a winning team that performed so admirably against their bitter rivals.

West Brom Form

Now that West Brom’s relegation from the Premier League has been confirmed, they become the proverbial dangerous animal.

They have players that are playing for their futures – whether at the Baggies or in trying to catch the eye of any watching scouts. Without the pressure of a relegation battle hanging over them, West Brom can play with freedom.

Big Sam Allardyce will have his troops bang up for this game, and any notion that they will just give up the ghost until the end of the season could not be further from the mark.

But the fact is that they lack quality, and a run of four games without a win – with nine goals conceded – means that they will have to play at a level far beyond their norm to tackle a rampant Liverpool outfit here.

West Brom vs Liverpool Betting Tips

The slight concern for Liverpool fans is their side’s fairly indifferent record against bottom half teams – W7 D5 L6 is indicative of the Reds’ struggles this term.

The hope is that they have turned a corner – a formline of W5 D2 L0 certainly suggests as much, although of course West Brom will pose a different, more physical test on Sunday.

The Baggies are shipping goals at an alarming rate, however, and even accounting for Liverpool’s woes against lower-placed sides we simply have to fancy the Reds to prevail – not that best odds of 1/4 on that eventuality are much to write home about.

One interesting angle might be to double up the Liverpool win with a Both Teams to Score flutter – the double is available at 13/8.

With all goodwill intended, Phillips and Williams is not a polished central defensive partnership, and look at West Brom’s scoring form – they put five past Chelsea, three by Southampton and netted twice against Aston Villa, and that’s all within their last six outings.