One BBC pundit has backed Liverpool to keep one sequence going against West Ham on Sunday while also bucking another recent trend.
Jurgen Klopp’s side have won their last five matches in all competitions and are unbeaten in 17 games stretching back to the start of April, but they’ve had to come from behind in all but one match of their current winning streak.
Chris Sutton doesn’t envisage a continuation of that alarming habit at the weekend, though, even if he believes David Moyes’ side could make it a tough contest at Anfield.
In his weekend predictions for BBC Sport, the ex-Blackburn striker has predicted a 2-0 win for Liverpool, writing: “I love the defensive discipline of David Moyes’ sides and the way he thinks as a manager. He knows what his team’s strengths are, and plays to them.
“The Hammers will be difficult to break down at Anfield and they will counter-attack when they do get the ball back.
“It’s Liverpool’s forwards who will decide this game, though. They have got so many dangerous attackers that they can rotate and cause all sorts of different problems.
“I liked their response when they found a way to win after falling behind against Wolves, and I think they will find a way through West Ham’s defence too.”
We’ll take a continuation of the winning sequence no matter how it comes, but Klopp and Liverpool fans would certainly like to see it accomplished with a clean sheet in tow.
It’d obviously be of much more concern if the Reds were scoring first and losing games than the other way around, but the habit of falling behind is a worrying one and just isn’t sustainable in the long run.
The first-half performances away to Wolves and LASK in particular were well short of the standards we know this team is capable of reaching, and against a West Ham side who’ve had their own strong start to the season, we can ill afford to be so slow out of the blocks once again.
Sutton is right in saying that Liverpool have the firepower to decide the game in their favour, with four of our five senior forwards scoring either at Molineux or in Austria, and that quintet already netting 11 goals between them since the start of the season (Transfermarkt).
The past few weeks suggest that there could well be a repeat of what happened the last time these two teams met in April, when the Irons scored first at the London Stadium but succumbed to a 2-1 defeat.
Ideally the Reds can buck the curious trend of conceding the first goal and maintain the winning streak while posting what’d be just their second clean sheet of the campaign so far.