11th placed Chelsea host Liverpool (who are eighth) in their first match since sacking Graham Potter as coach. Chelsea suffered a 2-0 home defeat at the hands of Aston Villa on Saturday and that latest defeat led to Potter being sacked the following day. The situation is looking grim at Cobham as the Blues have dropped do into the bottom half of the Premier League. That was their tenth defeat of this Premier League season. The 2016/17 Premier League champions now find themselves trailing fourth-place by 12 points with only ten matches remaining in the season. With Chelsea through to the quarter-finals of the Champions League, the Blues might have to rely on winning it all this year if they are to compete in the competition next season. The hosts’ loss to Aston Villa means that Chelsea has now managed to win only three of the last 10 league matches.
Liverpool, meanwhile, are coming off a underwhelming result of their own after fading to a 4-1 defeat against Manchester City despite opening the scoring in the 17th minute. The Reds have now lost their last three consecutive matches, all away from home, following their 7-0 home win over Manchester United which now surely feels like ages ago for the Kop faithful. Liverpool have been a shell of themselves this season when playing away from home and this current run perfectly encapsulates what has weighed them down so heavily this season. Jurgen Klopp’s side has posted an away record of only three wins, three draws and eight defeats while putting up a goal differential of -10. In comparison is their home record of nine wins, three draws and one defeat with an excellent goal differential of +25. Liverpool have the biggest points differential in the entire league in terms of home and away performance.
This is a heavy price but we still see some value in backing the visitors on the double chance here. Odds of 1.55 imply a 64.5% chance of occurring but we rate Liverpool’s chances higher than that of avoiding defeat in this match. In addition, Chelsea are a bit banged up at the moment and have a number of key players missing or questionable for this match including Azpilicueta, Silva and Mendy. A draw could well be on the cards here given the recent history between these two teams and the low morale in both squads. While a draw would be perfectly fine for this bet, we also think the Reds can steal the three points a decent amount of the time. Our Chelsea vs Liverpool prediction: Liverpool double chance