Venue: Villa Park
Date: 31/03/13
Kick-Off: 13:30
Pepe Reina and Jamie Carragher will be available for Liverpool on Sunday as the Reds travel to Villa Park to play their first game since the disappointing 3-1 defeat at Southampton two weeks ago. Liverpool will hope that the return of their first choice goalkeeper and vice-captain will fortify a defence that conceded three goals against a side still in a relegation dogfight.
Given that Sunday’s opponents, Aston Villa, are one of the other Premier League teams still fighting for survival, Liverpool fans will travel to Birmingham expecting to see a better performance from Brendan Rodgers’ side and hoping to come away with all three points.
Villa beat Liverpool 3-1 when they visited Anfield in December, a victory which remains one of Paul Lambert’s best results since he took charge of the Claret and Blue side in the summer. A disappointing run of form followed and Villa have won just three of their 13 league matches since that fixture; but given that two of those wins came in Villa’s last two games, Liverpool have perhaps come to Villa Park at the wrong time.
Nonetheless, history is on Liverpool’s side and they have a good recent record against the Villains. The Reds have only lost one of their last 14 games away to Aston Villa and they have only conceded four goals in their last 13 league visits to Villa Park. The last time Villa scored more than once at home to Liverpool was in November 1998, when the Claret and Blue side lost 4-2.
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Liverpool will look to Luis Suarez to fire them to victory once more. The Uruguayan remains the Premier League’s top scorer going into the weekend, with 22 goals to his name. However January signings Daniel Sturridge and Philippe Coutinho have eased the burden on the Reds’ number 7; Coutinho scored Liverpool’s only goal against Southampton and the Brazilian playmaker has contributed two goals and two assists in his four starts for the club since signing from Inter Milan.
Sturridge, meanwhile, has managed four goals and one assist in seven league appearances since moving from Chelsea. Suarez, Coutinho and Sturridge should expect multiple chances to score on Sunday against one of the league’s worst defences – Aston Villa have conceded 56 goals in the Premier League this season and have not kept a clean sheet since December.
Villa trio Darren Bent, Nathan Baker and Karim El Ahmadi have all available after recovering from injury, although Bent remains out of favour and has only appeared in 12 league matches for Villa all season, scoring just two goals. The Claret and Blue side continue to rely on summer signing Christian Benteke for goals; the Belgian has scored 17 times in all competitions. If Liverpool can stop Benteke from scoring, they should be able to secure a victory without too much trouble.
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Even Rodgers cant mess this one up. Easy 3 points
Lovely. But we need quality defender