Anderlecht vs Standard Liege Predictions

After a very positive start to the campaign, one that saw them win four on the bounce, Anderlecht have dropped off in recent weeks. When hosting St. Liege at Constant Vanden Stock Stadium on Sunday afternoon, Sunday’s hosts will be hoping to bounce back after losing for the second game straight when tasting defeat away in Slovakia on Thursday night.

Despite making a strong start to the campaign, Anderlecht find themselves in a rather unflattering 4^th position. On the face of it, that’s not bad, but for a club whose only ambition is clinching the title, it just won’t do. We’re only seven games in and Anderlecht are already six points behind league leaders Club Brugge, which is a result of losing two of their last three league matches.

Prior to their disappointment in Slovakia on Thursday night, Hein Vanhaezebrouck’s men lost by a goal to nil away at Genk, while they could only manage a draw at home against Antwerp prior to that. They did still carry a threat going forward against Genk last time out, and since that was the first game that they’ve failed to score, Anderlecht can be cut some slack, but they do need to sharpen up at the back.

Like the hosts, St. Liege come into this match off the back of a defeat on the continent, as they were on the wrong end of a 5-1 battering in Seville on Thursday night. Not for the first time, Michel Preud’homme’s men were made to pay for defensive deficiencies.

Going forward, Liege have the tools to hurt teams, as the fact that they’ve scored seven goals in their last four league games suggests, but they’re starting to struggle at the back, especially in terms of getting caught out on the break. Sevilla made light work of hurting them on Thursday, while teams such as Eupen and St. Truiden have found goals easy to come by when going up against Liege’s back-line in recent times.

Given how they’ve each performed in recent weeks, it’s reasonable to assume that both will come into this match with thoughts of exploiting their opponents’ defensive weaknesses. Scoring goals rarely tends to be a problem for either, as Anderlecht are averaging 2.67 goals for at home, while Liege are averaging 1.33 goals away. What’s more, Liege have failed to score just once away from home this season, while Anderlecht have scored in 100% of their home matches.

If we add in the fact that the pair have each kept just one clean sheet in their last five matches, then it becomes easy to fancy a high-scoring game, especially at the prices. Given how things have gone for both recently, ‘Over 2.5 Goals & Both Teams to Score’ gets the nod.