Leeds and Liverpool played out one of the most entertaining matches of the season on the opening weekend when the Merseysiders eventually prevailed 4-3 and more fun is expected when the teams clash again at Elland Road on Monday.
The pressure is on Liverpool, who are desperate for the points in their quest to qualify for the Champions League, but are sure to face a tough examination from a Leeds side that beat Manchester City with ten men last time out. Both teams to score at 20/33 and over 2.5 goals at 8/15 are sure to be popular but with goals fancied it may pay to back Diogo Jota at 20/1 to score a header.
Jota has scored three headers in this season’s Premier League and also bagged a brace of headers in Portugal’s recent World Cup qualifier in Serbia.
He is much better in the air than it is widely perceived and he can rely on excellent service from marauding full-backs Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson, while Leeds are bound to miss the experience of the suspended Liam Cooper at the heart of their defence.
Diogo Jota.
Signing of the summer?
pic.twitter.com/9gQ6emGavS
— Goal (@goal) December 18, 2020
Gunners Can Fire in the Second Half
Sunday’s double header begins at the Emirates where Arsenal could be forgiven for putting all of their eggs in the Europa League campaign, with any potential success granting the Gunners a backdoor route to the Champions League.
However, Mikel Arteta will be wanting to build momentum ahead of the semi-final with Villarreal and that could be bad news for a Fulham side that will have been rocked by relegation rivals Newcastle beating West Ham on Saturday.
The Cottagers are now seven points from safety and really need to win this London derby. That desperation could point to a bet on a tie at half-time in a match won by Arsenal at 16/5.
Fulham have been level at the interval in nine of their last 11 league games, including each of the last four, all of which were lost.
Burnley could be bashed at Old Trafford
There’s seven points between Burnley and Fulham so the Clarets will head to Old Trafford with a degree of comfort but they should be outclassed by Manchester United as odds of 4/11 suggest.
Punters looking to get a bit more juice on the price could consider backing United -1.5 on the Asian handicap at 53/50.
Burnley were beaten 5-0 at Manchester City, 4-2 at Leicester, 2-0 at Chelsea and 4-0 at Tottenham and the famous wins over Liverpool and Arsenal said much more about their opponents at the time with both in bad patches.
That cannot be levelled at United, who have lost one of their last 25 Premier League games and won each of the last four, a sequence which includes road wins at City and Spurs.
*All odds correct at time of writing