Liverpool v Napoli: Champions League betting preview, free tip & where to watch

Football tips, best bets and predictions for Liverpool v Napoli in the Champions League.

Where to watch

BT Sport 2, 8pm

Best bet

Liverpool & under 3.5 goals
1pt 7-5 general

Team news

Liverpool
Mo Salah has trained after an ankle problem. Joel Matip and Xherdan Shaqiri are absent.

Napoli
Four-goal Lorenzo Insigne and five-goal Arakdiusz Milik have not travelled. Defenders Kevin Malcuit and Faouzi Ghoulam are also injured.

Match preview

Napoli look to have enough problems on and off the pitch to enable Liverpool to waltz into the last 16 of the Champions League by winning at Anfield.

There are many ways in which Jurgen Klopp’s reigning champions can make it through to the knockout phase but beating Carlo Ancelotti’s visitors is the simplest and looks entirely plausible with the Neapolitans there for the taking.

Two-and-a-half months since Napoli kicked off the Group E schedule with a 2-0 win over Liverpool at the Stadio San Paolo, much has changed at the club.

They are still second in the group on eight points but they’ve hit a wall with no wins in six in all competitions.

They were booed off following a dreadful 0-0 draw at home to Genoa before the international break and looked clueless in Sunday’s 1-1 draw in Milan.

They’ve never won on eight trips to England – two of their six defeats came last season, at Liverpool in this cup and Arsenal in the Europa League – and they are in a far worse state than they were then.

The glory days under Maurizio Sarri have long gone and a stagnation has set in under Ancelotti. Even that win against Liverpool was ill-deserved.

Against all this there’s the backdrop of an irate president fining players after rebelling against his call for extra training, while two of their better frontmen – Lorenzo Insigne and Arkadiusz Milik – are missing this week.

Klopp insists Napoli are a threat because they boast world-class players and can perhaps play with more freedom away from domestic scrutiny.

And it’s true that Liverpool have been riding their luck of late – they’ve dodged bullets against Aston Villa, Manchester City and Crystal Palace with varying degrees of good fortune in their last three assignments.

But Liverpool just keep on winning and this winning machine is tipped to come up with another victory against Napoli though it won’t necessarily be a romp.

The hosts are inevitably long odds-on but there have been enough scares recently to suggest that a better bet might be the Reds to win in a game featuring fewer than four goals at 7-5.

There’s a phenomenal goal threat carried by Liverpool yet ten of their 16 victories this season have been in games featuring three goals or less and of course there were only two goals in Naples.

Klopp might decide against starting Mo Salah as he recovers from an ankle problem and certainly won’t want to overwork his front three ahead of a hectic December and New Year period.

Twelve of Napoli’s last 15 matches have produced three goals or fewer and while they may lack much invention or artistry they do look solid at the back where the much-coveted Kalidou Koulibaly can further enhance his reputation.

In response Napoli will likely be relying on Chucky Lozano and Dries Mertens, a strike pairing which has fired blanks in three of its last five outings.