LIVERPOOL VS AS ROMA PREVIEW & PREDICTION
Tuesday, starting at 19:45, will play Liverpool – AS Roma, in the UEFA Champions League semifinals. For “cormorants” this is the most important match of the season so far and they will definitely try to secure their qualification in the final on “Anfield Road”.
In each of the last three direct meetings, AS Roma has scored a goal difference. However, these meetings took place in friendly matches, so we will clearly not see a hostility like the one ever since the stake is the final UCL. The other two matches took place in the 2001-2002 UCL group, Liverpool managing to win the only victory in front of Rome in history.
After winning with Manchester City in 2-1 and 3-1, Liverpool scored a huge impetus for the moral chapter. The “cormorants” are currently preparing for the tournament after they managed to score 7 consecutive games with a positive result, their last defeat being a 1-2 with City but in the Premier League. Interesting is Jurgen Klopp’s approach in the last two stages. If in the game with Bournemouth he used the full squad, here with reference to the first 11, with changes after 80 minutes, in the match with West Brom things did not stay the same. He chose for a 4-3-3 as usual, but in the bottom line I could see from the players only solid Van Dijk while in attack instead of resting Salah as we would have expected , he preferred to give Firmino a break.
Interestingly, however, if we look at Liverpool from the point of view of defense. Karius marked himself as one of the best goalkeeper of the season, while Van Dijk’s arrival at Southampton culminated in the creation of a new hierarchy in the “cormorants”. The Dutchman quickly took the lead in Liverpool’s bottom line and with Alexander-Arnold’s help he managed to form a compact group along with Lovren and Robertson. Henderson, the team captain who was in the back with City was suspended, generally takes the defensive phase as much as possible to allow Oxlade-Chamberlain and Milner to go forward in front to help the triplet Salah, Mane, Firmino . Apart from Emre Can, Liverpool has no notable absence.
On the other hand, in the first 11 Italians, everyone is ready for the match. With no absences, Rome will attack this game in the classic formula for Di Francesco, 3-5-2. Still, even if the moral chapter is at least as good as Liverpool after the miraculous elimination of Barcelona, the Romans have some problems. First of all, if we look at the criticism of each player, we can see that Milner, who is only 4th in Klopp’s team, is far above any player in Rome. However, Tuesday’s guests have an advantage that could be felt at least in the middle of the pitch, 5 centimeters extra at the team average height of the cormorants. Given the following arguments, we offer the two tips:
Due to the fact that Liverpool has a much stronger attack and a much more complicated team, they will make fewer mistakes that can result in phases that have to be stopped even at the cost of a yellow. Jurgen Klopp is an accomplished tactician and has defeated 3 times Guardiola this season, of which 2 wins have come to UCL, confirms this hypothesis. Going on a tactic and a better “motivational speech” of the German, we think Liverpool will fail more.
If we look at the two middle lines we can see that Rome usually relies on superiority at the center of the field. With players like Kolarov, De Rossi and Nainggolan, this approach is logical but force is not even the best weapon against a technique like Salah’s. That is why we will focus our attention on the Belgian midfielder. Nainggolan, as he claims, does not only have a violent halt, but also a behavior, we refer to the entry chapter, the same. Therefore, we think that although Kolarov will help, it will be hard to keep him out of the game on the Premier League goalie, Mohamed Salah.
Probable teams Liverpool – AS Roma:
Liverpool (4-3-3): Karius – Alexandre-Arnold, Lovre, Van Dijk, Robertson – Chamberlain, Henderson, Milner-Mane, Firmono, Salah.
Absentees: Lallana, Can, Matic, Clyne (injured).
AS Roma (3-5-2): Alisson- Jesus, Manolas, Fazio- Florenzi, Stootman, De Rossi, Nainggolan, Kolarov- Schick, Dzeko.
Absentees: Defrel (accidentat).
PREDICTION: Liverpool to win @ 1.56
