Here we go! It’s Napoli at Liverpool FC, a UEFA Champions League group stage clash where the stakes are as high as possible. For Napoli, they need a draw or better to go though. For the Reds, they need a two goal (or better) victory to book a place in the knockout round. Let’s go through the team news for both sides.
Reds winger Sadio Mane is expected to be in the first team after he returned to the bench in the weekend’s 4-0 rout at AFC Bournemouth. Meanwhile central defender Dejan Lovren missed that road trip due to a head injury. He hopes to recover in time for this epic clash.
For Napoli, Alex Meret just made his debut over the weekend, as Carlo Ancelotti’s side beat Frosinone by the same margin that Liverpool beat the Cherries. In that same Serie A rout, Faouzi Ghoulam made his comeback from a year-long injury absence for the side that is currently second in the Italian top flight.
Despite the fact that Napoli only needs a single point, Ancelotti has made it abundantly clear that his side will not hunker down and park the bus for this contest.
Monday saw Reds defender Virgil van Dijk and manager Jurgen Klopp speak to the media to preview this clash. We have videos of those press conference sessions below via YouTube embeds.
VVD:
For Klopp, skip ahead to around the 17:30 to 18:00 mark:
Liverpool vs Napoli FYIs
Kick-off: 8pm (BST), Saturday December 11th, Anfield
Chances Advancing to the knockout round via FiveThirtyEight: PSG 82%, Napoli 68%, Liverpool 50%
Google Result Probability: Liverpool Win 60%, Draw 22%, Napoli Win 18%
Odds via Betway: Liverpool 3/5, Draw 16/5, Napoli 4/1
Liverpool Starting XI Prediction: go to this link
Match Preview/More on Carlo Ancelotti: go to this link
Prediction: Liverpool 4, Napoli 2
As always, feel free to post your own starting XI predictions, as well as your best guess as to what the final score will be. Enjoy the match!
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.