Huddersfield vs. Liverpool
Venue: John Smith’s Stadium
Kick off: 5:30PM
Liverpool will be looking to return to winning ways this evening when they take on Huddersfield Town at the John Smith’s Stadium.
The Reds are winless in their last four games across all competitions, but will be heavy favourites to beat a Huddersfield side still searching for their first victory of the campaign.
Huddersfield manager David Wagner will no doubt be beaming from ear to ear when he greets his old friend Jurgen Klopp in the dugout ahead of this match, but beneath the cheery exterior must lie a worried man.
The Terriers have made an ominous start to the new Premier League season which leaves them in the relegation zone and two points from safety after eight games.
Huddersfield were installed as the second-favourites for relegation before the campaign began, and there has been little to disprove that pre-season pessimism even if Newcastle United and Cardiff City currently sit below them in the standings.
Newcastle were handed a rotten start to the season and should begin to pick up more points now that their fixtures get easier, but for Huddersfield the immediate future looks a little more bleak as they go in search of their first win of the campaign.
Wagner’s side have picked up just three points from a possible 24 so far this term, and while a 1-1 draw with Burnley before the international break lifted them off the bottom, the major concern still surrounds the number of goals they are scoring.
No team has found the back of the net on fewer occasions than the Terriers this term, and remarkably they are yet to score a single league goal in front of their own fans in 2018-19.
Everton in 1998-99 are the only team to have failed to score in their opening five games at the start of a Premier League campaign, while including the tail end of last season the Huddersfield home fans have not seen their side score a goal since April 14.
Indeed, that is their only goal in their last 10 Premier League home games, including an ongoing drought of six without finding the back of the net – only Manchester City, who went eight in 2006-07, have had a longer run in Premier League history.
Unsurprisingly, then, there has not been a great deal to cheer at the John Smith’s Stadium so far this term. A goalless draw with fellow relegation favourites Cardiff provided their only home point of the campaign, and Saturday could see them lose three top-flight home games in a row in the same season for the first time since April 1972.
Hopes will not be too high of avoiding that fate against a Liverpool team who boast the joint-best defence in the league and limited the Terriers to just one shot on target against them over both of their meetings last season.
Huddersfield possible XI: Lossl, Durm, Zanka, Schindler, Lowe, Billing, Hogg, Mooy, Pritchard, Van La Parra; Depoitre.
Liverpool possible XI: Alisson, Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson, Henderson, Fabinho, Wijnaldum, Salah, Firmino, Shaqiri.