Wolves goal-shy at Anfield as Sadio Mane & Mo Salah aim to recapture scoring touch

December 6, 2020
Jack Lusby

Liverpool take on Wolves in the Premier League on Sunday evening, with both Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah looking for well-timed goals after a short drought.

Mane has netted each of the last three goals scored at Anfield in this fixture.

But his last league goal came in the Merseyside derby at Goodison.

Meanwhile, Salah has not scored in his last three appearances in league and cup after netting each of his previous four. He has eight goals in nine top-flight games.

Centre-back jumble

Klopp has fielded eight different starting centre-back partnerships in the opening 10 league games, with only the Joe Gomez–Virgil van Dijk partnership appearing more than once.

Despite those issues at centre-back, Liverpool have conceded just six goals in their last 10 games in all competitions, keeping five clean sheets in that period.

Goal-shy at Anfield

Wolves have scored just four times in their last 15 league visits to Anfield – a run dating back to 1972 – while in that time they have kept two clean sheets, winning both matches 1-0 when they were bottom of the league in January 1984 and again in December 2010.

They have not scored more than once in a league game at Anfield since Steve Kindon and John Richards netted in a 4-2 defeat in September 1972.

Home and away they have scored more than once against Liverpool in one of the last 30 top-flight meetings. That helped them to a 4-1 home win in 1980.

In the Premier League era, Wolves have scored four times in 12 encounters with the Reds and they have not scored a first-half goal since Steve Mardenborough in their win at Anfield in January 1984.

First goal wins?

Liverpool are unbeaten in the last 110 Premier League games (100 wins and 10 draws) at Anfield when leading at half-time since losing to Arsenal in December 2009.

Since promotion to the Premier League, Wolves have lost one of 36 games in which they have scored the first goal.

They have scored in the first half of 26 of their last 86 Premier League games.

Ex-Reds and a bitter reunion

Conor Coady played twice for Liverpool – both in the 2012/13 season. He started a Europa League tie away to Anzhi Makhachkala and came on as a substitute at Fulham in the league.

Coady played every minute of every Wolves game following their promotion to the top flight in 2018 (84 in total) until missing against Southampton last month.

It brought to an end a sequence of 119 successive league appearances.

Ki-Jana Hoever played four times for Liverpool before joining Wolves in the last transfer window. Those appearances all came in domestic cup competitions – two each in the League Cup and FA Cup.

Nelson Semedo came on as a 60th-minute substitute for Barcelona on that memorable Anfield evening in May 2019.

Tonight’s referee

Craig Pawson has refereed these teams twice before – once at Anfield with Wolves winning 2-1 in the FA Cup in January 2017, the other in Liverpool’s 2-0 league victory at Molineux in December 2018.

He sent off Willy Boly in a defeat at Man City in January 2019.