Gunners May Not Find the Bluebirds an Easy Target
There shouldn’t really be any debate about who is going to win this game. One team fifth in the Premier League and in the last sixteen of the Champions League against a team who are fourth in the Championship but did get to the final of this competition last year before losing 1-0 to Portsmouth.
It’s fair to say that Arsenal are a class above Cardiff and after being held to a 0-0 draw in the first match you’d have to think that Cardiff’s chance may have gone. Cardiff played extremely well in the first game-especially early on- and created quite a few good chances before tiring towards the end of the match.
Arsenal with home advantage are long odds on at 4/9 (VCbet) and it should be a straight forward win bet. So why do we not feel confident about taking Arsenal at that price?
Maybe it’s the fact they are underachieving this season and have only drawn their last four games. To be fair they are on a long unbeaten run of 11 games –five of them at home- but they have put in a few under par performances lately and Cardiff could well take advantage of another poor display.
Cardiff are on a good run of form too and haven’t lost a match since November. It’s this winning mentality that makes Cardiff so dangerous and we believe they will take Arsenal to the wire.
Cardiff are 9/1 (Skybet) to cause an upset and are extremely tempting to back at that price, although we think the 4/1 (Coral) for them to qualify is a better betting proposition. We think Cardiff can get a draw 10/3 (Paddypower) and we are having a bet on the 1-1 correct score at 7/1 (Partybets).
In the first goalscorer stakes our picks are Robin Van Persie for Arsenal at 3/1 (Partybets) and Ross McCormack for Cardiff at 11/1 (Bet365).
The under 2.5 goals is 11/12 (Betfair) and that looks worth getting on.
Our prediction is a draw and if we had to pick a winner of the tie it would be Cardiff. We wouldn’t be surprised to see this tie go to penalty kicks and we just might have a little nibble at 13/1 (Paddypower) on Cardiff settling the tie this way.