Liverpool travel to Brighton this Sunday looking to get things back on track after last weekend’s lunacy.
Liverpool may have returned to winning ways in Europe on Thursday, but could still do with a nice, comforting, controversy-free victory in the Premier League after the debacle at Spurs, which saw the Reds handed a first loss of the 2023/24 campaign.
However, if Jurgen Klopp could’ve hand-picked a game to use as a trampoline to bounce back from such a scarring defeat, it probably wouldn’t have been Brighton.
Despite the 6-1 loss at Aston Villa, the Roberto De Zerbi’s side remain one of the Premier League’s toughest fixtures for any opponent, while Liverpool have won just once in the last seven meetings with the Seagulls.
Both teams will be eager to go into the October international break with a return to winning ways and the game has the ingredients to be a cracker.
Sam McGuire: This is a tricky one for Liverpool.
Brighton have lost just one of the previous seven clashes against the Reds and they scored eight goals in three matches against Klopp’s side last season. They are the top scorers in the Premier League this season and are averaging 2.7 goals per 90.
However, they’re also a little all over the place defensively. They’re without a clean sheet in a competitive match this season and only the bottom three teams have conceded more goals than Roberto De Zerbi’s side (14).
The Reds don’t have many options in attack due to injury and suspension but in Mohamed Salah, Luis Diaz and Darwin Nuñez, they have serious pace and genuine goal threats. I’m going for a Liverpool win.
Brighton 2-4 Liverpool
Dan Vassie: Both teams seemingly have something to prove.
Brighton were absolutely trounced by Aston Villa last weekend, and let’s not talk about Liverpool’s trip to Spurs at all.
I’d imagine Liverpool will concede first (as per), but the squad is more than capable of coming from behind as we’ve seen so many times this season.
After Darwin’s horrendous missed sitter mid-week, you wouldn’t put it past him to score two Puskas Award-worthy goals in typical fashion.
Brighton 1-2 Liverpool
Andrew Headspeath: The Reds’ recent record against Brighton is really not good, but weirdly I might be more worried about this game had Liverpool not lost last week.
It’s cliched but Klopp’s side need a reaction now and could well use the injustice of last weekend as fuel to propel them on here.
The Spurs defeat was also, interestingly, Liverpool’s best defensive display of the season so far. They’ll need to be pretty airtight to stop free-scoring Brighton, and Kaoru Mitoma vs Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ibrahima Konate may be the key match-up.
That said, I’m backing Liverpool attack’s ability to create plenty of chances to be what stops them from getting their chips pinched by the Seagulls this time.
Brighton 2-2 Liverpool
