EPL Odds: Spurs Take on Ailing Liverpool
Liverpool (+124) vs Tottenham (+260), Draw (+250)
Title contenders Tottenham Hotspur (14-8-2, 50 points) will travel to Anfield on Saturday, February 11, to take on Liverpool (13-7-4, 46 points) for the 25th round of the English Premier League.
Whether Liverpool can be described as title contenders is up for debate. It was only a few weeks ago when they were in second place, staring down leaders Chelsea. But after five consecutive league games without a win, the Reds now find themselves in fifth place, 13 points from the top.
In those five games, Liverpool remained competitive against the top teams, drawing 1-1 with Manchester United and Chelsea. But they squandered opportunities against bottom-tier sides, losing to 18th-place Hull (2-0) and 17th-place Swansea (3-2). And they scraped by with a draw against last-place Sunderland.
Flaming out against lesser opponents has become a theme for Liverpool. Their loss to Championship-side Wolverhampton Wanderers saw them eliminated from the FA Cup, and their two losses to 13th-place Southampton in the League Cup denied them a spot in the final. It’s a spectacular crash for a team that looked so promising up until year-end 2016.
Tottenham have been steadily chasing Chelsea throughout the season. They had a slight mishap recently after drawing 1-1 against last-place Sunderland, but other than that, they have been remarkably consistent. As it stands, they are nine points away from Chelsea. That’s not an insurmountable lead, but given how dominant Chelsea are at the moment, it will be a very tough gap to close.
The Spurs are unbeaten in nine straight, which includes a streak-ending win against Chelsea and a close draw against Manchester City. They have an in-form squad and the rumors of a Dele Alli transfer to Real Madrid proved false, so the 20-year-old star will remain in Tottenham’s lineup at least until the end of the season.
Tottenham have a pretty mediocre record playing away (4-6-2). In their last few away games, Spurs have lost to Chelsea and Manchester United, and drawn with Manchester City. But their poor away record doesn’t compare to Liverpool’s slump over the last few weeks.
Pick: Tottenham (+260)
Photo credit: “Football at Fenway – Red Bleachers” by Eric Kilby, CC BY-SA 2.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0], via Flickr
Don Aguero is a man of many talents, writing about nearly anything you can put odds to. Don has been writing for SportsBettingDime since 2015, covering sports, entertainment and politics. You name it, he's covered it! He is also a steadfast West Ham fan, and has learned to embrace that suffering.
