Suarez one more reason to back opening day draw at Liverpool
Published:Liverpool fans will be optimistic of a positive result when Stoke visit Anfield on the opening day, but history points punters towards in the direction of shared spoils at the final whistle.
Despite a positive pre-season on the field where Brendan Rodgers has overseen six wins from seven matches, Liverpool have a terrible recent record of gaining maximum points in their curtain-raising Premier League clashes.
Of their last 12 opening day matches Liverpool have only taken home all three points twice. In fact, you have to go back five seasons to 2007/08 in order to find the last time Liverpool triumphed in a 2-1 win at Villa Park, thanks largely to an own-goal from Martin Laursen.
Worse still, the last time the Anfield faithful were treated to a victory on day one was way back in the 2001/02 campaign, when West Ham were the victims courtesy of a Michael Owen brace, just to put matters into context.
Of the subsequent four season-starters at home, a loss to Chelsea preceded draws at home to Middlesbrough, Arsenal and Sunderland – with the last two of those results arriving in the past three seasons.
12 months later and the omens have not been helped by their most potent scorer of last season Luis Suarez being banned, while Daniel Sturridge – their next most prolific in the charts despite only joining in January – a doubt with injury having sat out nearly all of pre-season.
The market combining the draw and under 2.5 goals to be scored in the match also becomes an attractive prospect at 19/5 given the hosts have failed to notch more than once on the opening day since that Villa Park win as well.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
