Reds return to the scene of a rare recent disappointment

Liverpool will return to the venue of arguably their worst performance of last season when they kick off their defence of the Champions League in Napoli’s San Paolo stadium on Tuesday night.

Divock Origi has been ruled out while Andy Robertson is also a doubt. Jurgen Klopp might look to shuffle his pack a little with a massively important Premier League fixture at Chelsea coming up this weekend, but there is a large enough gap between Tuesday night and Sunday afternoon that he could go full strength if he chose.

Some changes are likely, however, and members of the squad who haven’t featured much will be hoping for an opportunity to play. Joe Gomez, Dejan Lovren, James Milner, Jordan Henderson, Xherdan Shaqiri, Adam Lallana and even young Rhian Brewster will all be hoping to see the field after failing to make the starting line up in last weekend’s 3-1 win over Newcastle. 

Liverpool are still riding the crest of a wave having become European Champions for a sixth time last June. Not only are the Reds top of the table, they are the only side in all four divisions to still boast a 100% record this season.

Despite the Reds having raced into a five point lead at the Premier League summit, Sports Betting Dime still has City are still favourites for the title, but Liverpool’s odds have shortened after their 100% start to the campaign.

While it’s understandable that City are favourites to retain the crown they’ve worn for the past two years, it’s puzzling that they are also favourites to win the Champions League. Their record in the competition is poor, whereas under Jurgen Klopp Liverpool have reached successive finals and are the reigning Champions.

The Group Stages of the competition always throw up some interesting (and often surprising) results, but in truth we will learn very little from the outcome of these games. The only thing that matters is getting out of the group and often you’ll see big teams losing group games, quite simply because they can afford to. 

The Reds lost all three away games in the group last year (which included a dreadful showing against Napoli) but not only emerged from the group, they won the whole damn thing.

So while this game in Naples is important in regards to keeping the winning run going, in reality it won’t matter one bit if the Reds suffer a bad result. Napoli away is the toughest game in the group, but regardless of the result on Tuesday night, both teams should qualify comfortably from a group that also includes Salzburg and Genk.

A win would keep Liverpool’s momentum going nicely, but losing this fixture last year didn’t exactly do them any harm so whatever happens on Tuesday the most important thing is to avoid injuries