Ipswich Town vs Liverpool: Preview, Form Guide and FanTribe's Prediction

The state of play

The early Premier League table makes for curious reading ahead of Ipswich Town's meeting with Liverpool on Friday evening (4 September, 8pm BST).

According to the Premier League table, the hosts sit ninth with three points from a single outing — a win in which they scored twice and conceded once. Liverpool, by contrast, are 11th after two matches: no wins, two draws, four goals scored and four conceded, for a return of two points.

That is the central tension of this fixture: a home side who have begun brightly against firm favourites who have not yet won. According to the Premier League table, only Manchester City, Hull City, Newcastle United and Everton have collected more points than Ipswich's three, and Liverpool are the highest-placed side in the division yet to register a victory.

Form guide

• Ipswich Town — form: W. One game, one win, two goals for and one against. A perfect start by the numbers, if a small sample.
• Liverpool — form: D, D. Two points from a possible six and an even goal difference. The attack has scored four times in two outings; the defence has conceded exactly as many.

The odds

Bookmakers price the visitors at 1.57 for the win, with the draw at 5.0 and an Ipswich victory at 6.0.

Those prices imply a win probability of roughly 64 per cent for Liverpool, about 17 per cent for the hosts and 20 per cent for the draw — with a small bookmaker's margin taking the total just above 100 per cent.

The message from the market is clear: two draws have done nothing to dent the belief that Liverpool's quality will out, even against opponents who arrive on the back of a win.

What to watch

Two themes stand out. The first is Liverpool's defensive record: four goals conceded in two matches is a leaky return for a team the bookmakers rate this highly, and it is the most obvious crack in their start. The second is Ipswich's efficiency — they needed just one match to bank three points and sit two places above their visitors.

There have been eight goals across Liverpool's two matches, four at each end, and that openness points to an entertaining evening.

For Ipswich, the task is to prove that start is sustainable against opposition of this calibre. For Liverpool, it is to turn control into a first win of the campaign before the early table begins to tell an uncomfortable story.

FanTribe's verdict

Our prediction, drawn from the table and the market rather than any inside track: the favourites' price looks justified, but Liverpool's defensive record makes a clean sheet unlikely. We're predicting a 2-1 away win — the visitors' quality telling in the end, with Ipswich scoring on home soil.