Champion’s League-Who Really is The Chosen One?
It’s as much Mourinho versus Ferguson as it is Inter versus United in this Champion’s league match and the “Chosen One” could well meet his match in Ferguson. The Scot has steered United into a challenging position for Europe’s top prize once again and with his team seemingly riding the crest of a wave for wise, it could be surf’s up for Jose and Inter.
There are a lot of similarities between the two sides apart from enigmatic managers. Both have only lost twice all season in their domestic leagues, both are top of their respective leagues and both are current domestic title holders. The main difference is in their Champions League records, where Inter have fallen at this stage in the previous two seasons, while United are defending holders are on a 19 match unbeaten run in the competition and just need one more win to set a new record.
So who will win? Over the two legs probably United, but they will have to work hard to see off Inter and the first leg in Italy could well see United having to overcome a deficit in the second leg.
Inter are 7/5 (Partybets) and that’s a decent price for any Italian team who are playing at home. You can back United at 2/1 (Ladbrokes) to win and with their recent defensive record that isn’t too bad a price to be thinking about taking.
Our prediction is a draw 21/10 (Paddypower) and we think a bet on a 0-0 correct score 6/1 (Partybets) has a chance of giving a return.
Stuttering Arsenal or should that be Arse-nil, take on Roma at the Emirates with the knowledge that they have drawn five of their last six games and failed to score in four of them. The combination of misfiring in front of goal and the possibility that Roma will revert to type and come and defend leads us to believe this could be a low scoring affair and the under 2.5 goals at 8/13 (VCbet) has to be a bet worthy of a little punt.
Arsenal have a great European home record that has stretched 22 games without defeat and also have a decent record against Italian sides. In contrast Roma have only won once in 12 visits to England and lost the last five. With these two contrasting records the Evens (Partybets) about an Arsenal win looks very attractive even if they aren’t in the best of form at present. Roma at 3/1 (Bodog) don’t hold much appeal for us and we’re going for a home win.
Our prediction is an Arsenal win with a 1-0 correct score 11/2 (VCbet).
Lyon play hosts to Barcelona and with both sides capable of scoring goals we’re looking forward to a highly entertaining game. In the group stages last season this fixture ended in a 2-2 draw and that’s a score that we wouldn’t be too surprised to see repeated tonight. The 2-2 correct score is 16/1 (Skybet) and is worth a small stake.
The draw is 9/4 (Bodog) and for a first goalscorer bet we’d be looking at Messi 11/2 (Partybets) or Benzema 8/1 (Ladbrokes) as the two most likely options.
In the final game tonight Atletico Madrid 11/10 (Ladbrokes) are favourites to beat Porto, but even at such a good price they may not be worth backing. Atletico are not in good form at the moment and have lost six of their last 10 games. They do have a good home record in this competition however and that has to be taken into account when looking for the outcome of the match.
Porto are doing far better domestically than Madrid and with a decent away record in the competition we think they are capable of taking a point from the match.
Our prediction is a draw at 9/4 (Bodog) with a correct score of 1-1 11/2 (Bet365).