Saturday Soccer Stats

Arsenal get the chance to all but confirm their top four finish with the lunchtime kick-off on Saturday as they host a Liverpool side that stand six points below them with just eight games remaining. Given their superior goal difference that is effectively a 6.5 point advantage and Liverpool simply have to win here if they are to claim a Champions League finish this term.

Liverpool will need to overturn a poor recent record here if they are to win as they’ve won just one of their 18 trips to Arsenal in the last 15 years in all competitions (W10-D7-L1 to Arsenal). We’ve often written about Arsenal’s awful stats against top four sides in the past few years, but that largely relates to their away record and Liverpool are in a deserved fifth place on the evidence shown so far this campaign.

Since 2011/12, Arsenal have won five and lost only one of their 12 home games against teams that finished 3^rd-7^th and their confidence should be high having won nine of their last 10 games before the international break. Arsenal have lost only once at home all season and they’ve recorded Win/Win doubles in their last seven home matches. There have been plenty of goals in their matches this term as they’ve scored at least twice in 14 of their last 16 matches with 13 having at least three goals in total. Three of Arsenal’s four top-eight visitors this season have managed to score and while we don’t expect the Gunners to be too gung-ho as a draw will be an acceptable result for them Liverpool will have to attack.

Liverpool have kept six consecutive clean sheets on the road but they were beaten 3-0 and 3-1 on their two trips to sides above them this term and Wayne Rooney’s penalty miss was all that stopped them conceding another three in their last game before the international break. The Reds task won’t be made any easier by the absences of Martin Skrtel, Daniel Sturridge and Steven Gerrard (well maybe being able to ignore the Gerrard farewell tour will help). Sturridge’s absence puts us off the ‘over-goals’ here as Brendan Rodgers may look to start with Raheem Sterling up front and while they’ve scored 13 times in Sturridge’s seven appearances (including scoring in every game) this season they’ve averaged just 1.35 gpg in the 23 matches he’s missed. Liverpool may well score here but they’ve scored just seven times in their last seven away matches and so we prefer the 2-3 exactgoals at 2.15 in the Total Goals market.

Liverpool last won at a top-five finisher at the start of the 2011/12 season and since 2009/10 their record at these teams is just W2-D6-L16, while this term they’ve lost both trips to would-be top-five sides. 13 of these 18 defeats have been Loss/Loss doubles and there have been eight 1-2 scores amongst the 10 defeats they scored in. Arsenal have the fitter, stronger squad and they look value to back at 2.9 to claim a Win/Win double while the 2-1 correct score is worth a punt at 9.0.

Despite Dortmund’s travails this season, this is still surely the biggest game in German football as the 2012/13 Champions League finalists go head to head at the Signal Iduna Park on Saturday evening. As a result of Dortmund’s poor season, the destination of the Bundesliga title is a foregone conclusion with Bayern 10 points ahead of Wolfsburg, while Dortmund seem destined for mid-table mediocrity, although given that there was talk of them potentially having a relegation battle on their hands at one point this season, that may not be such a bad thing.

The accusation labelled against Bayern last season following their disappointing Champions League exit was that as they had the league sown up by the time the Champions League reached its business end, they lacked the competitive edge required when they went out to Real Madrid. With this in mind, they will surely be determined to put in a good performance against a proven Champions League side here.

Bayern suffered a shock 2-0 home defeat at the hands of Borussia Monchengladbach in their last match, which put an end a run of six straight wins in all competitions. Although they drew three of their first four away games this season, they’ve since won eight of their last nine on the road, with six wins to nil. Indeed prior to the defeat against Monchengladbach, Bayern had demolished Shakhtar 7-0 at home, before beating Bremen convincingly 4-0 away. It should also be noted that Bayern haven’t lost two away matches in a season since 2011/12.
 
Dortmund would love to have a similar record to Bayern’s in that respect; they’ve already lost seven away matches this season and things aren’t a great deal better at home, where they’ve lost four times so far. A mini resurgence has seen Dortmund go unbeaten in their last seven games, five of which they’ve won, meaning that there is no longer any talk of relegation, but closer inspection of these results suggests that Dortmund might not be back to the force they have been in recent seasons just yet: six of these seven games were against bottom-half sides and the fact that they lost 5-1 on aggregate to Juventus is a truer indication of their current level. It is also interesting to note that Dortmund are winless in their last six Saturday evening matches, losing three of these games.

The fact that Arjen Robben is injured for this game, however, may give Dortmund some hope. Bayern have won 15 of the 16 away games he’s played since the start of last season, but they’ve only won 57% of the14 road games they’ve been without him over that period, as they’ve drawn five of these matches. Though Robben is undoubtedly one of Bayern’s best players, they certainly have the squad to cope with his absence, with Thomas Muller likely to come in after he was left on the bench for the defeat against Monchengladbach.

Robben’s absence is the likely reason that Bayern are odds against here and 2.15 about them winning is a price that we feel is too good to pass up against a Dortmund side that we aren’t entirely sure has banished their earlier season demons. It also noteworthy that Dortmund have drawn the first half in their last four home games against top-six sides, whilst Bayern have only been ahead at half-time in three of their last seven away matches. Add to this the fact that eight of the last 11 league meetings between these teams have been level at half-time and Draw/Bayern in the HT/FT market looks worth a punt at 5.75.