Injuries but Reds look the part
Some TAB soccer customers won big, really big, last weekend and there’s little doubt that more will be celebrating huge wins this weekend when TAB is adding R1 million in cash bonuses to a range of pools including Soccer 10 bets on Friday and Saturday.
Jurgen Klopp’s long farewell at Liverpool can yield its first trophy this Sunday when the Reds take on Chelsea in the Carabao or League Cup final. Both sides reached Wembley in the same competition two years ago and it was the Reds who emerged triumphant after a penalty shootout. Liverpool are firm favourites to repeat that success, but they have some serious injury concerns and still have an English Premier League home game to play against Luton tonight before heading to Wembley.
They lost Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota to injury in the first half against Brentford last Saturday and Darwin Nunez was substituted at half-time as a precaution. Jota is expected to be out for at least eight weeks with a knee injury and Jones is almost certainly out of the final due to an ankle injury.
Alisson Becker also missed the Brentford match after injuring a muscle in a training session and may now be out until the end of the month. But he would not have started the final in any case as Caoimhin Kelleher has kept goal in all the League Cup games.
As for Chelsea their longterm injury list is unchanged with Reece James, Wes Fofana and Marc Cucurella all out for the foreseeable future. Romeo Lavia is back in training, but there is no update as yet on Thiago Silva and Carney Chukwuemeka has an ankle injury and Benoit Badiashile is out until March.
The EPL will roll on without the cup finalists and on Saturday Arsenal host Newcastle and Manchester City go to Bournemouth, who they have beaten 14 times in a row.
Arsenal have looked particularly sharp in recent games but enigmatic Newcastle are never a pushover.
Domestically, there are Nedbank Cup clashes Friday through Sunday, but Mamelodi Sundowns travel to Mauritania to take on rookies Nouadhibou in the African Champions League.
Sundowns won their last away game in the group phase away in Egypt in December and a victory on Saturday will earn them a quarter-final slot. But they have drawn three of their last four PSL games and it is likely they will travel to West Africa without many of the players who recently returned from national team duty at the AFCON finals in the Ivory Coast.
The Sundowns clash, selected Nedbank Cup games and EPL matches are all contained in TAB soccer bets for the weekend and no fewer than seven pools will have added cash from TAB. Great soccer to watch and great chances to win a pile of cash!
HIRED/FIRED: Steve Komphela is back on the job market after agreeing a deal to leave Moroka Swallows, where he made a promising start this season but was ultimately, in part at least, undone by disastrous offfield issues.
BACK IN ACTION: Orlando Pirates goalkeeper Sipho Chaine is one of several players back from injury after the six-week PSL break allowed time to recover.
WHO’S HOT: Not many defenders emerge unscathed, let alone laughing, after facing Erling Haaland, but charismatic Axel Disasi loved every bit of the duel last weekend when Chelsea nearly upset Manchester City. WHO’S COLD: Coach Thomas Tuchel has seen Bayern Munich lose ground in the Bundesliga after successive loses at Leverkusen and Bochum and right now it looks doubtful he will be around next season.