Something For The Weekend Part III

Mixed bag of results that I'll come to on Monday, but there's a pretty big game in the Premiership at lunchtime, so let's take a look at that.

Manchester United v Liverpool
Supposedly the game where the form book goes out the window, but before hitting any unwary pedestrians on the head with it let's see what the form we're supposed to be discarding actually is. All figures refer to Premiership matches at Old Trafford (for Manchester United) or away (for Liverpool) unless stated.

United have lost twice in their last 20 games (Chelsea and Aston Villa) and only drawn once in that period so they're obviously favourites - their current best price is 1.75, which represents value, but only from the point of view of those last 20 games. Looking at their head to head Premiership record at Old Trafford v Liverpool, United should be nearer evens.

If you didn't know you were looking at Liverpool's away record in the Premiership over the last 20 games you would be forgiven for thinking it belonged to someone else. Five wins, seven draws, eight defeats is slightly inferior to Manchester City's current record: best price for a Liverpool win is 5.5, which is about right.

Head to head is an interesting one - United have won four of the last five meetings, but that becomes five of the last ten, eight of the last fifteen and ten of the last 20. I think this only goes to show that although Liverpool are still capable of springing the occasional surprise, they are no longer at the same level as United as they were even five years ago.

Something else that jumps out straight away when looking at United's home record and Liverpool's away record is that a United clean sheet is a distinct possibility. Referring back to their last 20 home games, we find that opponents have failed to score against the Red Devils in 12 of them - this figure rises to 13 in 20 when all competitions are taken into account. Additionally, Liverpool have scored in less than half of their last 20 away games in the Premiership and are currently on a three game away streak without scoring.

The figures for clean sheets in Head to head games between United and Liverpool in the Premiership at Old Trafford differ, but only slightly. Liverpool have scored in both of the last league games at Old Trafford (including four in March 2009) but they've averaged less than a goal per game in both their last twenty visits to Manchester United and in their last 20 away games in the Premiership.

Which leads me to a tentative recommendation: back Manchester United to keep a clean sheet.

I'd leave the Over/Under 2.5 goals alone as the numbers are inconclusive, but outside those parameters there should be more than 1.5 but less than 3.5 goals in the game. None of United's last 20 home league games have finished 0-0 but Liverpool have been involved in six goalless draws in the same period; there hasn't been a 0-0 between these two at Old Trafford in the league since October 1991.

So another tentative recommendation: the final score will probably not be 0-0.

Looking at correct score betting, the most frequent scores in this game over the last 20 seasons in the league have happened on three occasions each:

* Manchester United 0, Liverpool 1
* Manchester United 2, Liverpool 0
* Manchester United 1, Liverpool 0
* Manchester United 1, Liverpool 1

So although there's about a 60% chance of one of these coming up, the one that's 'best fit' for the rest of the stats is Manchester United 2, Liverpool 0, which is another tentative recommendation - but don't put your house on it. It might be fun to do what I did for the World Cup final - dutch the four scorelines above and hope one of them comes in!