Part One by Gary Fulcher.
Liverpool ended 2016 in style with a 1-0 win over Manchester City at Anfield, extending their lead over Per Guardiola’s 3rd placed side to four points and reducing the deficit to leaders Chelsea to six points. January sees the Reds enter their most intensive month of the season to date with the match against Sunderland coming less than 44hrs after the Man City game ended. It’s also one of at least seven fixtures to be played this month depending on results in the FA Cup.
The Reds kick off 2017 with a trip to the Stadium of Light to face Sunderland on Monday – 3pm kick off UK time – and victory for Liverpool will reduce the gap to Chelsea to three points with Antonio Conte’s side not in action until Wednesday when they travel to White Hart Lane to face Tottenham.
David Moyes’ Sunderland currently occupy the last of the relegation places and suffered a 1-4 defeat against Burnley at Turf Moor but they did win their least league game on home soil, overcoming Watford 1-0. Their two draws is the joint second fewest in the division, while they’ve lost the joint most games (13), scored the joint fewest (17) and only two teams (Swansea: 44 and Hull: 41) have conceded more than their tally of 35 goals.
The rest of this match preview is for subscribers only.
[ttt-subscribe-article]
){kind=link}