CHAMPIONS LEAGUE BETTING PICK - ARSENAL F.C V LIVERPOOL F.C

Champions League

2008-04-02 - Arsenal F.C vs Liverpool F.C

A Sports Betting Pick by Cruiser

Analysis:

Arsenal knows that their efforts in beating defending Champions A.C Milan in the previous rounds will go to waste if they were to get knocked out by Liverpool in the quarter-finals stage when two heavyweights of English football come head to head for a place in the semi-finals. This will be the first of three meetings with Liverpool as they are also battling to win the Premiership having been knocked out of the FA Cup already thiss eason.

The two games in the Champions League and one in the Premiership will make or break Arsenal's season and if they do not perform and fall under the pressure then they could end up handed this season. Cecs Fabregas who scored against Milan before Adebayor put the final nail on the European Champions's coffin, admittedly their hard work will go to waste if they do not go on and win the Champions League now.

Fabregas added that pressure motivates him as well as the team when nobody gave them a chance against A.C Milan and they managed to win against all odds in Italy. Now Liverpool who seems to play better in European Competitions will prove another tough task and their opponents who have reached the final twice in the last three years will only motivate Arsene Wenger's players to achieve similar feat when they meet here today at The Emirates Stadium.

Arsenal have to be wary of Fernando Torres in the Liverpool side who has scored 28 goals to date now and will be keen to score in this match.

But it must be remembered that Arsenal has a better record when these teams met last season, notwithstanding that it was domestically as they destroyed Liverpool in the League Cup as well as FA Cup last season. Kolo Toure who said it might leave a mental scare and make The Reds afraid of The Gunners but Benitez was quick to dispel that saying they will treat it as a Europoean game and not have any effect on them.

Arsenal did beat Liverpool three out of four times last season so they will have the edge here even though Benitez will want his boys to treat this as a European match rather than a domestic game. But Benitez hit back saying that they beat Arsenal 4-1 in the league at Anfield and it ended 1-1 at Emirates despite Torres with an injury problem playing just 45 mins of the match.

Arsenal will be glad to have ended their five match winless run when they beat Bolton 3-2 coming in late in the game. Liverpool will be glad that they are very much likely to finish fourth now after beating Everton who is their closest challengers last weekend. The scorer of the goal is none ofther than Fernando Torres who will be the player to watch here.

Today is the first of three meetings and they will play each other three times in six days so we cannot expect today's result to have much bearing in the other three meetings between them. Liverpool will miss the services of Australian Harry Kewell as well as defender Daniel Agger while Javier Mascherano is set to return after missing last weekend due to suspension. Arsenal on the other hand will miss the services of right back Bacary Sagna and midfielder Tomas Rosicky and the long term injury to Eduardo, otherwise they are at full strength.


Cheers and good luck,
Cruiser

The Pick :

BEST BETTING TIP :

Take Arsenal to win this match.