Champions League
2005-08-23 - Liverpool vs CSKA Sofia
A Sports Betting Pick by Duncan
The return leg at Anfield on Tuesday night where Liverpool hold a 3-1 lead. This means CSKA Sofia need to win 3-0 to advance in the Champions League proper, and lets face this is football anything can happen.CSKA Sofia can not afford to sit back and catch Liverpool on the counter attack, I expect the Bulgarian side to be going for it from the opening whistle - hoping to create that doubt in the Liverpool side and an early goal will assist in their cause.
Liverpool are without their captain Steven Gerrard for this game after he picked up a calf injury at the weekend during their 1-0 win over Sunderland.
To say Steven Gerrard is a huge loss to Liverpool is an understatement. The talisman captain has been in goal scoring mood in the Champions League - with 7 goals so far - but I did have a feeling he may have started from the bench anyway if fit considering the games coming up for Liverpool.
Still it was Morientes (2) and Cisse who scored in the first leg in Bulgaria. Since then both Morientes and Cisse have drawn blanks in the opening two Premiership games, with Cisse coming the closest with a disallowed goal??? against Sunderland at the weekend.
With the absence of Steven Gerrard, I expect Dietmar Hamman to play some part in this game, he hasn't been included in the squad in the opening Premiership games, and so a run for the German is overdue.
Rafa Benitez will be looking for some of his other players to stand up and lead the side, Sami Hyypia will take over the captaincy (unless rested), while of course we expect nothing less from Jamie Carragher but it's the likes of Alonso, Hamman, Garcia to must also lead the way.
In the first leg Liverpool showed thye had the edge on CSKA Sofia, although I expect CSKA Sofia to put Liverpool under early pressure Liverpool should still have that edge over them. So I'm going for a home win.
The Pick :
Liverpool 2-0
