LASK looks to bounce back against favored Liverpool in Champions League

LASK arrives bruised and hosts a Liverpool side that opened with a win: that sums up the picture before kickoff at Raiffeisen Arena. The Champions League once again brings together two teams with recent history against each other, and there's plenty on the line, both sides are looking to right the ship or confirm their course in the league phase.

The Austrian club still hasn't found its footing in the competition: in its record this tournament it has played one match, lost it, with zero goals scored and one conceded. The picture from its last five matches doesn't help the narrative either: just one win, one draw and three losses in that short sample. Liverpool, on the other hand, opened with a 2-1 win in its tournament record, and over its last five matches arrived with three wins, one draw and just one loss, a considerably sturdier foundation heading into Linz.

The table, with just one match played by each side so far, confirms the gap: LASK sits in 27th place with 0 points, while Liverpool sits 13th with 3. The gap between the two in the standings is 3 points, though it's worth not reading too much into a table with only one matchday played.

The head-to-head record doesn't favor the home side either: across the 2 matches on record between these two, Liverpool won both, with a combined 7 goals scored against just 1 for LASK.

Probable lineups

On the Austrian side, the estimated lineup (medium reliability, per our own sample) has Lukas Jungwirth in goal, a back line with Alemão, Andrés Andrade, Xavier Mbuyamba and either George Bello or Kasper Jørgensen, a midfield of Sascha Horvath, Melayro Bogarde and Robert Ljubicic, and Christoph Lang alongside Moses Usor up front.

Liverpool, also on a probable basis, would field Alisson Becker between the posts, with Ronald Araujo, Virgil van Dijk, Jérémy Jacquet and Milos Kerkez across the back line. In midfield, expect Alexis Mac Allister, Florian Wirtz, Bradley Barcola, Dominik Szoboszlai and Víctor Muñoz, with Alexander Isak leading the line up top. Worth noting: Mac Allister and Szoboszlai already rank among Liverpool's top scorers in this season's sample for the competition, with one goal apiece.

What do the numbers say?

Our model has Liverpool as the favorite, though without an overwhelming edge. Here are the figures:

With 44% for Liverpool against 31% for LASK and 25% for a draw, the split points to a clear but far from overwhelming edge for the visitors: there's room for a surprise. The expected goals from our model, another in-house estimate, point to 1.5 for LASK and 1.81 for Liverpool, a combined total of 3.32 that suggests a match with goals at both ends. It's worth remembering that this piece and its expected-goals figures aren't betting odds or a locked-in prediction, just a reading based on the season's trends.

With recent history working against it and its collective form still a question mark, LASK will need a very different performance from what it's shown so far if it hopes to make life difficult for Liverpool at Raiffeisen Arena.