Liverpool vs. Norwich Predictions: Diaz to net first Liverpool goal

Liverpool welcome Norwich to Anfield on Saturday afternoon with the bookies incredibly confident that the Canaries will not be travelling back to East Anglia with any of the spoils. At the time of writing the best price on the draw is 19/2 and the away win is out at 29/1. Both of those prices are with SBK. Does Neil Monnery think one of those shock Premier League results is on the cards or is he looking at all the prop markets for his tips heading into this game…?

Not to bury the lede here but I’m not raiding my piggy bank to lump it all on Dean Smith’s side to get anything from this game. They have been markedly improved since the former Aston Villa manager has taken the reins but they are still very much in the relegation battle.

A run of six straight league defeats throughout December and stretching into January came with the added caveat of no goals scored. In their past four however they’ve taken seven points and hit the back of the net four times. That is a real change of pace but facing Liverpool is different to Crystal Palace, Watford and Everton, who are the only three teams they’ve scored against in over two months.

Norwich have unsurprisingly scored the fewest league goals so far in the 2021-22 Premier League campaign. Only 14 times has Delia Smith had cause to jump up off her seat and cheer a goal. The cook and TV personality has also seen her side concede no fewer than 50 times. So that is 2.08 goals a game let in compared to 0.58 scored on average in league play. That stat alone is why they are fighting for their Premier League survival.

Liverpool on the other hand are still very much in the title hunt. A win on Saturday would put Jurgen Klopp’s side just six points off the current Premier League leaders - for a few hours at least. They returned from Italy in midweek with a good 2-0 win at the San Siro against Inter Milan. Two late goals from Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah secured the victory and put The Reds in a great position to reach the Quarter-Finals of the Champions League.

So it is fair to say that I think the two teams are pretty mismatched so let’s look away from the result markets and see what value we can scout and immediately I’m drawn to an 8/1 shot with William Hill concentrating on corner kicks.

The bet is both teams to have at least two corners in each half. Liverpool average 7.91 per home team so far this season. That part looks highly likely. It is the Norwich aspect of the bet that holds trepidation as they tend to not hit the mark but the price is so long that I wanted to look deeper at the statistics.

They have hit over 3.5 corners in six of their 11 games away from Carrow Road. When you push it to over 4.5 then it does come down considerably to three of 11 but they have been there or thereabouts in more than half of Premier League road trips so far this season.

They are 6/1 to get over one corner each half on their own (even without the Liverpool half of the bet) and the implied odds indicate William Hill think the chances of that part happening are just 14%. Yes we need to take into account they are going to Anfield to play a team much better than them but even so - I think this bet has a better than 11% chance of happening, which is the implied odds at 8/1. I also noticed the same bet with Paddy Power is 9/2 at the time of writing so this is an outlier price, which makes it all the more tempting.

If you like your bets a bit shorter in price then how about Luis Diaz to score anytime which is best-priced at 13/10 with several bookmakers?

The Columbian international had four shots in his Premier League debut against Leicester and a home game against Norwich is the perfect place for Klopp to give his newest player his second start. The 25 year-old has scored 16 goals in 31 appearances so far this season for both Porto and Liverpool and my gut feel is that an odds against price for him to score on Saturday is a value play.