Low Odds, High Odds: UCL Semi-Final - Liverpool vs Villarreal

On Wednesday night, Liverpool hosts Villarreal at Anfield in the first leg of the Champions League semi-finals, with Jurgen Klopp’s side looking to reach their third final in four years, whilst the Spaniards are attempting to reach back to back European finals having won last season’s Europa League at the expense of Manchester United.

This is the first meeting between these two sides since Liverpool emerged victorious over the Yellow Submarine in the semi-finals of the Europa League back in 2016; Klopp’s side won 3-1 on aggregate, with Daniel Sturridge’s and Adam Lallana's goals adding to Bruno Soriano’s early own goal to seal a 3-0 second-leg win at Anfield.

Mohamed Salah will be expected to start in this one, with the Egyptian being in scintillating form this campaign, scoring 30 and assisting 13 in 43 matches across all competitions.

The 29-year-old former Chelsea and Roma forward has managed eight goals in 10 Champions League matches, averaging a goal every 92 minutes from 23 shots.

Notably, Salah hit the target twice last week when he scored a brace in Liverpool’s 4-0 thrashing of bitter rivals Manchester United.

Four of Liverpool’s last five matches have seen the Over 2.5 Goals market land, with last weekend’s 2-0 victory over Everton being the anomaly. Prior to this, Klopp’s men had beaten United 4-0, Manchester City 3-2, as well as drawing 2-2 with the Cityzens and 3-3 with Benfica.

Sadio Mane has scored 19 goals in 43 matches, having taken 72 shots. Of late, Mane managed to score against United, as well as scoring a brace in Liverpool’s 3-2 win over City at Wembley.

In this game, we expect Villarreal to deploy a defensive game plan, not too dissimilar to Everton’s. At the weekend, Liverpool had 13 corners, whilst Bayern Munich accumulated 12, with six in each leg against Unai Emery’s side.

Dani Parejo has received two yellow cards in 10 Champions League appearances this season, but, with Liverpool likely being on the front foot for the majority of this tie, there is every chance that the Spaniard could commit a professional foul in order to break up play and run down the clock.

Scotland international Andrew Robertson is having a superb season for Liverpool yet again, as the 28-year-old Glaswegian has made 15 assists in 40 matches, and even scored a rare goal against Everton at the weekend in his side’s 2-0 derby win.

Robertson recently made his third Champions League assist of the season against Benfica and is priced at 3/1 to repeat this feat again versus Villarreal.

When Villarreal faced Bayern at the Allianz Arena, Bayern managed to have 23 shots, accumulating 45 altogether over the course of the two legs. It will still remain a mystery to the Bundesliga champions as to how they didn’t progress when looking at those figures.

At this moment in time, Liverpool are arguably a better outfit than Bayern, as they mount a challenge to be the first team in England to complete a quadruple of this magnitude. They will fancy their chances of producing a similar number of shots at the Villarreal goal.

As mentioned above, both Salah and Mane are having superb seasons for Liverpool, whilst January addition Luis Diaz has scored four goals and created three assists in 18 matches, including the Reds opener against United. The Colombian averages 2.9 shots per game across the whole of this season.

Former Watford and Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Etienne Capoue has been instrumental for Villarreal since joining the club back in 2021. The 33-year-old provides the Yellow Submarine with a lot of defensive protection and has received eight yellow cards this season.