But still, for Milan it will be a home game, it seems to me that bookmakers estimate Liverpool's chances quite fairly - 1.88. Liverpool is the favorite, but considering the away game and the fact that this is not a playoff game when everyone plays at their best, I would not bet on Liverpool. Liverpool are doing great in the Premier League and it can be assumed that they will be maximally focused on the Premier League, and the group stage of the Champions League will be assessed on a residual basis.
Liverpool's odds 1.93 now. Even though this is not a play-off, and it's an away game for them. But they should have won it to ensure they will be at the top 8 to get into the R16. I still consider this a very important match for them, and wish me luck to bet on Liverpool.
I doubt Liverpool would de-prioritize the UCL. They want to finish in the top 8, not 9th - 24th. Then, they could advance to the round of 16 without playing a 2-legged tie.
The fact that the odds are moving in favor of Milan is a bad sign (if you are going to bet on Liverpool), usually such a movement (even a small one)
means that the bookmakers have "changed" their mind. I don't think Liverpool will aim for a 100% result in the Champions League group stage, as the Premier League remains their priority. It seems to me that even a coefficient of 2.0 here does not compensate for the risk.
No not necessarily. I don't know if this applies to all bookmakers, but I have once talked to somebody who is quite deeply involved with the industry and he told me that bookmakers balance out the odds depending on the amount of money being bet on a certain outcome. If Liverpool is at 1.90 and say Milan at 3.90 and a lot of people place money on Liverpool, then the odds go down with more and more money being placed on that outcome. It makes a lot of sense to me as that is one mechanism that bookmakers can algorithmically create an edge for themselves, hedging their outcomes against each other by adjusting the odds at least slightly so to say. I think minor movements in the odds are more a sign of these rebalancing processes.
If there are fundamental changes in the odds, then I think it is more likely that something happened which the bookmakers then have priced into the odds. I currently see Liverpool at 1.88 and Milan at 3.85 and honestly speaking, although Liverpool had a decent start into the new season, this does by no means mean that they will easily destroy Milan away from home. The game still has to be played first, it is a new format, it is difficult to tell how everyone will adjust to it. In group stages it was not uncommon that underdogs caused the big teams some trouble because the big teams knew that they can just win their last four games and qualify (to put it simple). I am excited to see how intense these Champions "league" games will be.