Manchester City and Liverpool will be looking to secure their spots in the UEFA Champions League semi-finals when they take on Atletico Madrid and Benfica respectively in Wednesday night’s 2nd leg quarter-final encounters. We take a look at the games from a betting angle.
Let’s start with a look at the Outright Betting where Manchester City are trading at 7/4 favourites with Liverpool priced at 37/20.
Click here for Champions League long term markets
ATLETICO MADRID v MANCHESTER CITY
Atletico Madrid lost 1-0 on the road to Manchester City, but given City 3/10 were favourites for the encounter it wasn’t the worst of results and it certainly puts them in with a chance of causing an upset.
They had seen off Manchester United 2-1 on aggregate in the last 16, but their home record was quite suspect in the group stages with two losses and a draw. Atletico Madrid were beaten 1-0 on the road by Mallorca on the weekend, a game in which they started even money favourites.
Manchester City would have been disappointed to only win the 1st leg 1-0 and this is certainly proving to be a tougher fixture than their last 16 clash with Sporting when they won 5-0 on aggregate.
City have played 4 times on the road in Europe this season winning 2 and losing 2 and on the weekend they were in a critical EPL clash with Liverpool conceding a second-half equaliser to draw 2-2.
BETTING – Click here to bet
Atletico Madrid 15/4
Draw 27/10
Manchester City 8/10
Suggested Bet: The draw at 27/10
I feel this is going to be a tight potentially low scoring affair and I think the value here is to back the teams to finish level.
Looking at the goal markets over 2.5 goals is trading at 1/1 and I am just going to stick to my draw play at this point.
LIVERPOOL v BENFICA
Liverpool come into this tie after a comfortable 3-1 win on the road in the 1st leg. Their only loss in Europe this season was a home game against Inter, but they still managed to progress to the last 8 with a 2-1 aggregate having won the away leg. In Liverpool group matches they won all 3 home games. They have only lost 1 match in all competitions this year and that was the clash against Inter.
Benfica beat Ajax on the road in their last 16 match to progress 3-2 on aggregate, but they will need to pull far more out of the fire if they are to advance against Liverpool. Benfica were in good nick in the League on the weekend beating Belenenses 3-1 at home and a common thread in Benfica matches is that both teams find the back of the net with this bet arriving in 6 of their last 7 matches.
BETTING – Click here to bet
Liverpool 2/7
Draw 11/2
Benfica 17/2
Suggested Bet: Both teams to score, YES, at 8/10
Liverpool should win this, but at 2/7 they are a bit short to back and I actually think that Benfica can continue their recent record of getting a goal in matches even when they are defeated.
Of course that suggests there will be goals in the match but over 2.5 goals is trading short at 4/10. If I was to get involved in this one it would be over 3.5 goals at even money.
Note: All prices correct at the time of writing but are subject to change
