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Plenty of pundits have been weighing in on what has the potential to be a catastrophic week for Liverpool, and legendary commentator John Motson is backing the Magpies to put the nail in the red coffin.
Liverpool travel to St. James’ Park on Saturday evening needing three points to keep the pressure on Manchester City.
The reigning champions face Leicester City on Monday evening, and after Liverpool’s Champions League defeat at the hands of Lionel Messi the Reds are on the brink of ending their impressive season with nothing to show for it.
And Motson, who made his name as a BBC Match of the Day commentator, thinks Newcastle will be the ones to complete the Merseysiders’ misery.
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What did he say?
After his fellow pundits backed a Liverpool win, Motson told TalkSPORT (14:53, 03/05/19): “Funny, I’m going 2-1 the other way.
“I just think Liverpool – can they really get to the end of the season having lost only one game? I always thought somebody somewhere or other would trip them up and with the Barcelona games either side of this.
“And Newcastle with Ayoze Perez suddenly playing out of his skin, and there’ll be a lot of support for Rafa again in this period just before we find out whether he’s getting a contract so the crowd will be up.
“I’m going to go 2-1 Newcastle.”
Verdict
It would be all to easy to side against Moston and predict a comfortable Liverpool win, but let’s not forget the Magpies have already taken down Manchester City at St. James’ this season.
Under Rafael Benitez, nearly every Newcastle match against the “big six” is decided by one or two goals, and the Spaniard will certainly not take any prisoners against his old club – he is one of the most professional managers in the arena, after all.
On top of that, Liverpool have picked up just two points in their last four visits to Tyneside, failing to score in two of those games.
Add in the fact that they have just suffered a heart-breaking defeat in Barcelona and are surely feeling a sense of inevitability about City wrapping up the title, and Motson’s prediction could well turn out to be a stroke of genius.
If Newcastle score first, the Reds will have to show a tremendous amount of courage to prove the legendary commentator wrong.