Wednesday night sees some mammoth legends of European football going up against each other for the first leg ties of their Champions League Last 16 matches. Manchester City are involved as well. We’ve gone deep into the stats to find a nicely-priced double.
Lyon vs Juventus: Juventus to Win – EVENS
Wednesday 20:00
Over the last couple of months, Lyon have been playing catch up and have been making amends for a pretty part start to the season. Over their last five matches in all competitions they’ve only lost once and over their last 15 they’ve lost only two. They qualified for this round by finishing second to RB Leipzig, three points behind and one ahead of Benfica. Of their home CL matches, they won one and drew the other two so they’ll be hopeful here or getting out of their match with something and eager to get an away goal in Turin.
So far this season Juventus have been fighting pretty successfully on all fronts, they’re top of Serie A, they’ll be entertaining AC Milan in the second leg of the Coppa Italia in a few weeks time and took 16 points from a possible 18 in the Group stage. Of course, for a team doing so well this season their away from is going to be good, however, of late they’ve lost to both Napoli and Verona in the league and drew away to Milan in the first leg of the Coppa Italia match.
Lyon will be confident of going toe to toe with Italy’s best here and with Lyon being just a short train trip from Turin this will have a derby feel. However, if there’s one team in the competition who can wear down a team and take a win from the grips of a draw it’s Juventus so we’re giving them the nod here at EVENS.
Real Madrid vs Man City: Real Madrid to Win – 9/5
Strange to think that Real Madrid are second in the league, just two points behind Barcelona, having already won the Spanish Super Cup, and this has been, so far, thought of as a bad season. They could still win the league, and the Champions league, a treble, and they’re calling it a bad season.
Man City, thanks to that UEFA ban, having nothing to lose here so you’d expect them to throw caution to the wind and go all out for the win here. But that’s not really Pep Guardiola’s style. For all the greatness of Guardiola, his conservatism in the knockout stages of this competition has seen his sides knocked out again and again and again. Here’s a shocking stat; in his managerial career, Pep Guardiola has only seen his teams win seven out of 28 away Champions League knockout ties.
Form wise Real have lost just one of their 15 home matches but of their last five have won two, drawn two (winning on penalties) and losing one. City are in better form with four wins and one loss in their last five away matches. Over 2.5 goals at 4/7 is tempting but City haven’t been scoring enough of late to make us go that way.
Really the value is with Real, it’s rare you get them at such a good price and with Guardiola’s terrible away record in the knockout rounds we have to go for Zinedine Zidane’s side here at 9/5.
A £/€1 double on these two selections returns £/€5.60 including stake on pp.com. Odds correct at time of posting, subject to change.
Find a full range of odds on Wednesday’s Champions League over on paddypower.com