UEFA Champions League betting tips: Manchester City- Atalanta // Olympiakos- Bayern Munich
Oct 22, 2019
UEFA Champions League:
Manchester City- Atalanta
Olympiakos- Bayern Munich
City will all but be in the knockout stage and as group winner with a win tonight, they are seasoned campaigners now in the CL and favourites to win the competition with many. Atalanta are talented and a joy to watch, something we have spoken of a couple of times in the last month, they were prominent in the Serie A ITB notes last week and in early season I wrote ..........
Atalanta are very interesting , they are incredibly well run given the relative size of the club and budget compared to the other Serie A big players and the proximity of Bergamo to Milan (40km). They have finished 4-7-3 in the last three campaigns and also finished runner up in the Coppa Italia last season, making it the best in their history. They have to play group stage home games in the San Siro , but the draw has been kind and a good chance for them to progress along with Manchester City and, on the road in the Champions League, this is about as easy as it is going to get. Atalanta are a good road team, with a 12-4-5 record in Serie A since the start of last season, scoring 46 goals @ 2.19 per game, that is a 57% win rate in a league where the average is 28% (27.89% last season). As good as their record is, they are probably better ! Expected goals and points indicate they should have been an extra 3 points and be 2-3 goal difference better off, the opposite of what you would expect from an "over achieving" underdog. It was a similar story in 17-18, they were 7th, but all numbers suggest they should have been 3rd, as they were last season, with XG and P suggesting then were 10 of each "better".
We know they are good, are offensive minded and will not sit back for long, bu they are novices in CL terms and that inexperience has come to the fore through two group games, a shocking 4-0 loss in Zagreb to Dinamo and 2-1 home loss to Shakhtar where they led, missed four big chances including a penalty before conceding with the final kick of the game in the 96th minute ! As I said, inexperienced ! Not much to lose now and I expect them to give this a real go and for them to score at least once, possibly two.
Olympiakos served us very well through qualification, they then outplayed Tottenham for long periods but could only draw 2-2, then led 1-0 at Crvena Zvezda when they had Yassine Benzia sent off and fell apart, losing 3-1. Ahead of that my preview included .........
I have been really impressed with Olympiakos and although they had to come from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 with Tottenham in their group stage opener they fully deserved the point, looked the more likely winner and built on a very good qualification run in the competition, where they served us well. I think we backed them three times and they won each, anyway, ahead of the first, with Istanbul Basaksehir my notes included ......Hosts are relative European newcomers, whereas Olympiakos have a fine Champions League history and between 2007 and 2016 participated in the group stage seven times and collected at least 9 points every time, an incredible record, quailfying for the knockout stage on three occasions. They are unbeaten in their last 12 European qualifiers (9 wins) and are coming off a fine 4-0 aggregate defeat of Viktoria Plzen in the previous round. They allowed the Czech side only one attempt in the second leg and might easily have scored another 2-3 goals, missing many chances to add to their tally.Plzen striker Ondřej Mihálik said:“Olympiacos were stronger in everything. We discussed their strongest side – free kicks – but finally conceded three goals after them. It‘s unbelievable, they totally deserved to win, they were better in all skills."
They look strong and were not fearful of Tottenham, or anyone they have played in the CL and unlike some Greek teams we have seen in the past, sorry to "stereotype" them, they are not alone in this, but they did not lie down when trailing to Spurs, which at 0-2, many other teams would have done.
I still think they are good, pretty sure they will not fear Bayern and look to take the game to them and I would not rule out the upset win, despite having sided with the Bavarian giants in that 7-2 win at Tottenham ................
Something not quite right with Tottenham, there were rumours all summer of a falling out between Mauricio Pochettino and chairman Daniel Levy and we had the long running Christian Eriksen saga and many other of their top players have been under performing . They have won 5 of their last 17 cometitive fixtures , keeping just three clean sheets, conceding multi goals (2+) in 8 of those, remember we are talking about a Big 6 club and through a period in which they reached the Champions League final. The five wins were Brighton/Villa/Palace/Southamp
Think we will see goals in these two games, how about a very odd approach which allows us to side with the underdog, while still allowing for a high scoring win for the favourite.
2 unit double both teams to score in City-Atalanta and Olympiakos-Bayern............
0.5 units double Atalanta and Olympiakos both to score "over" 1.5 goals (2+) .............16.0 general quote, up to 18.7 available.
Good Luck
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