We look
ahead to Friday’s Premier
League game at Anfield with our Liverpool vs Bournemouth
prediction and preview. Will the defending Premier League champions
start with a victory?
Liverpool vs Bournemouth: The Key
Stats
- The Opta
supercomputer makes Liverpool resounding 69.4% favourites to
win the match against Bournemouth. - The Reds have won their last six home league games against
Bournemouth by an aggregate scoreline of 23-2. - Mohamed Salah is the Premier League’s top goal scorer and
leading player for goal contributions on Matchday 1.
The 2025-26 Premier League season begins on Friday night with a
match between reigning champions Liverpool
and Bournemouth
at Anfield.
History is very much on the Reds’ side, in two ways. Not only do
they have a strong record on Matchday 1, but defending champions do
overall in the Premier League as well.
Liverpool haven’t lost their opening league game in any of the
last 12 seasons, winning nine of them. Their last campaign to start
with a loss was 2012-13, Brendan Rodgers’ first season in charge,
when they lost 3-0 at West Bromwich Albion. The Reds’ unbeaten
stretch is the longest current run without defeat on MD1 of any
Premier League side.
There have been very few instances of title holders suffering a
loss in the first league match of the following campaign either.
Their collective record reads 26 wins, four draws and just three
defeats across the 33 previous Premier League campaigns.
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If anything can give the Cherries a glimmer of hope this week,
it’s that the losses all occurred within the last nine campaigns.
Leicester City were the first to lose on MD 1 in 2016, before
Chelsea did likewise against Burnley the following year. Manchester
City’s defeat at Tottenham Hotspur in 2021 completes the set.
In fairness to Bournemouth,
they haven’t lost their opening league match in any of the last
seven campaigns, so are on a decent run with season openers
themselves. Coincidentally alongside Liverpool, their last such
loss also occurred at The Hawthorns, where they were beaten 1-0 in
2017-18.
It doesn’t seem to matter at which point Bournemouth face
Liverpool in
the season though. They almost always suffer a defeat. The Reds
have won 11 of the last 12 meetings in the Premier League. They
also won a cup tie on the south coast in that period on their way
to lifting the Carabao Cup in 2023-24.
Their record in this fixture at Anfield is even more dominant.
Bournemouth have taken just one point from 24 available at
Liverpool in the Premier League, losing their last six visits by an
aggregate score of 23-2.
As with many opponents of the Reds, a huge part of the Cherries’
problem has been the unstoppable form of Mohamed
Salah. He’s scored 11 Premier League goals against them, more
than any other player.
The ‘Egyptian King’ also has a phenomenal record in home
matches. Salah has scored 105 league goals at Anfield, with only
Sergio Agüero (106 at the Etihad) and Thierry Henry (114 at
Highbury) netting more goals at a single venue in the history of
the Premier League.
Most worryingly for Bournemouth ahead of this match is the
33-year-old’s fondness for the opening weekend of a new season.
Salah has scored more goals (9) and registered more goal
involvements (14) on first matchdays of Premier League campaigns
than any other player, with only Paul
Pogba (six) registering more assists on Matchday 1.
Go Deeper:
Andoni Iraola cannot call upon his own goal machine either.
Justin
Kluivert top scored for the Cherries in the league last season,
with 12, but he is one of five players very unlikely to make the
trip to Anfield. Ryan
Christie, Lewis
Cook, Luis
Sinisterra and Enes
Ünal are also not expected to feature due to injury.
There are not as many concerns for Arne Slot.
Ryan Gravenberch is suspended following his red card on the
final day of last season, while Conor
Bradley and Joe
Gomez are sidelined with fitness issues. The Liverpool manager
will at least be able to show off his shiny new toys.
Florian
Wirtz was one of only six players to register double figures
for both goals and assists in the top five European leagues last
season, delivering 10 and 12 respectively. The Reds’ record signing
could also become the third German player to score on his Premier
League debut, after Jürgen Klinsmann in August 1994 and Ilkay
Gündogan in September 2016.
Bournemouth won 2-0 against Leicester in their final game of
2024-25 but haven’t won consecutive Premier League matches since
January. With history and injuries against them, it’s very hard to
see that run ending here.
More on Liverpool’s transfer business:
Liverpool vs Bournemouth
Head-to-Head
The head-to-head record between these teams has been utterly
dominated by Liverpool, especially at Anfield.
Bournemouth have just one point from their eight Premier League
trips to face the Reds, while they have lost five straight in all
competitions since a 1-0 victory at the Vitality Stadium in March
2023.
Liverpool won this fixture 3-0 last season, albeit their goals
were scored by Luis
Díaz and Darwin
Núñez who have since left the club. The return fixture in
February saw a 2-0 away win for the Reds thanks to a brace from
Mohamed Salah.
One of the biggest
wins in Premier League history occurred in this exact fixture
at Anfield only three years ago, too. Liverpool 9-0 Bournemouth
remains one of only four games to have a nine-goal margin in
Premier League history.
Liverpool vs Bournemouth
Prediction
Liverpool are given a 69.4% chance of starting their Premier
League title defence with three points in the opinion of the Opta
supercomputer.
Its 10,000 simulations saw the teams end all square 16.9% of the
time, with the remaining 13.7% seeing a victory for
Bournemouth.
As the Cherries are winless across the 11 visits they have made
to Anfield in their history, everything is pointing towards a
Liverpool win.
Liverpool vs Bournemouth Predicted
Lineups
Liverpool: Alisson Becker, Milos Kerkez, Virgil
van Dijk, Ibrahima Konaté, Jeremie Frimpong, Dominik Szoboszlai,
Curtis Jones, Cody Gakpo, Florian Wirtz, Mohamed Salah, Hugo
Ekitiké
Bournemouth: Đorđe Petrović, Adrien Truffert,
Marcos Senesi, Jordan Hill, Adam Smith, Tyler Adams, Alex Scott,
Dango Ouattara, Antoine Semenyo, Marcus Tavernier, Evanilson
Opta
Power Rankings
The
Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They
assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams.
This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the
worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the
world.
Ahead of kick-off on Friday night, here is the Opta Power
Ranking for both sides.
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