CHAMPIONS LEAGUE WEDNESDAY: Our football tipster The Ultra previews Wednesday’s Champions League games between MANCHESTER UNITED V ATALANTA and CHELSEA V MALMO FF both with a recommended BETDAQ bet.
MANCHESTER UNITED V ATALANTA
8pm We have another excellent night of Champions League action on Wednesday! We start with a huge game in Group F and we can expect to see plenty of drama in-play on BETDAQ Betting Exchange!. After all the euphoria at the club after Ronaldo came home and immediately started scoring goals, things have really started to take a turn for the worse for United. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is now a man under pressure and another loss here would put them in a very difficult situation. You’d have to think Solskjaer could be gone should United exit the Champions League. The cracks started to show with a 2-1 loss to Young Boys and only for Ronaldo scoring a last minute winner against Villarreal they would even be in a more difficult situation. With further disappointing results in the Premier League, the club need a win here. They really do.
It still amazes me how quickly football moves. Things were going so well for Solskjaer and now within a few games, he’s massively under pressure. Perhaps the arrival of Ronaldo has added even more pressure, because you get the sense that United have a title winning or challenging side, but they will be fighting for top four. The problem for United is too, if they sack him who do they bring in? There aren’t many options. They lost their unbeaten away run to Leicester at the weekend and that followed another poor performance at home to Everton. The systems aren’t working, and that is down to the manager. Atalanta have had a reasonably slow start to Serie A this season and are just sitting in sixth, but I still wouldn’t have United odds on here. I expect a close game, and the longer the score stays level the more nervous the atmosphere becomes. From a value point of view, United look a cracking lay at 1.8.
The Ultra Says:
Three points lay (liability) Manchester United to beat Atalanta at 1.8 with BETDAQ Exchange.
You can view all markets here -> https://bit.ly/BDQMunAta
MATCH STATS
● Manchester United and Atalanta have never faced in any competition previously, with La Dea the seventh different Italian team the Red Devils have faced in Europe (also Fiorentina, Inter Milan, Juventus, Lazio, Milan and Roma).
● Atalanta have won three of their six UEFA European matches against English opponents (D1 L2), beating Everton twice in the 2017-18 Europa League and away at Liverpool in November 2020 in the Champions League.
● Manchester United have won six of their last seven home games in the UEFA Champions League against Italian opponents, however the most recent of these was a 0-1 defeat to Juventus in October 2018 under José Mourinho.
● Atalanta are one of two teams in major UEFA European competition history to have played more than one away game against English opponents and won more than half of their games (67% – 2/3) – the other is Berliner FC Dynamo, who also won two of their three games (L1): against reigning European Cup champions Nottingham Forest in 1979-80 and Aston Villa in the European Cup in 1981-82, who would go on and win the trophy that season.
● Manchester United have lost 58% of their UEFA Champions League games under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (7/12) – the highest percentage of defeats by any manager to have taken charge of an English club on 10+ occasions in the competition.
● Atalanta have only lost one of their last seven away games in the UEFA Champions League (1-3 v Real Madrid in March), winning five and drawing the other. The Italian side have scored 17 goals across this run of seven away trips, at an average of 2.4 per game.
● Since making his first UEFA Champions League appearance for Manchester United in October 2020, Bruno Fernandes has been directly involved in more goals in the competition than any other player for the club (7 – four goals and three assists). Overall, no midfielder has been directly involved in more than Fernandes in the UEFA Champions League in this period.
● Duván Zapata has assisted two of Atalanta’s three goals in the UEFA Champions League so far this season, doing so once against both Villarreal and Young Boys. He could become the first player to assist in three consecutive appearances for Atalanta in the competition.
● Man Utd’s Cristiano Ronaldo has scored 18 goals in 23 UEFA Champions League appearances against Italian sides, only scoring more against German opponents (28 goals). This is his first appearance in the competition against an Italian side since April 2018, when his last minute penalty for Real Madrid against future side Juventus took them through to the semi-finals on aggregate.
● 10 of Atalanta’s last 11 goals in the UEFA Champions League have been scored in the second half of games, with the only exception being Remo Freuler’s midfielder after six minutes against Villarreal on MD1.
CHELSEA V MALMO FF
8pm Next we move to Group H as Chelsea host Malmo. This is a must win game for Chelsea, although they shouldn’t have much difficulty winning. The market is fully expecting an easy home win with Chelsea trading 1.11 at the time of writing – that’s the shortest price of any side on this Matchday as you would imagine! Chelsea are a little behind in Group H after losing to Juventus, but they should still get through to the next round. Obviously they can’t afford any slip ups against the whipping boys of the Group. Malmo lost 3-0 to Juventus with home advantage and then 4-0 to Zenit St Petersburg away from home. Sides like Malmo will always perform better with home advantage compared to away, and this should be a case of how many goals do Chelsea score rather than will they win.
I feel like Chelsea are run riot here, and Any Other Home Win (Chelsea to score four or more goals and win) looks good value at 2.64 in the Correct Score market. Chelsea were incredibly lucky to beat Brentford at the weekend in the Premier League, but Brentford managed to keep Liverpool to a draw with home advantage too, and they also created a big xG against them. Other than that performance, Chelsea have been dealing with the smaller sides pretty easily. They came up short against Liverpool and Man City performance wise this season, but there’s a huge gulf in class here and I expect this to be one way traffic for Chelsea.
The Ultra Says:
Two points win Any Other Home Win Correct Score at 2.64 with BETDAQ Exchange.
You can view all markets here -> https://bit.ly/BDQCheMlm
MATCH STATS
● Chelsea and Malmö FF faced in the last 32 of the UEFA Europa League in 2018-19, with the English side winning both games and 5-1 on aggregate (2-1 away, 3-0 home).
● Chelsea have never lost against a Swedish side in UEFA European competition (W3 D3), avoiding defeat against Åtvidabergs FF in the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1971-72 (D2), Helsingborgs IF in the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1998-99 (W1 D1) and Malmö in the Europa League in 2018-19 (W2).
● This is the first meeting between English and Swedish teams in the UEFA Champions League since the first group stage in 1999-00, when Arsenal played AIK and beat them twice. Malmö’s only previous meeting in the European Cup with an English team was in the 1979 final, losing 1-0 to Nottingham Forest in Munich.
● Chelsea have only lost two of their last 48 home UEFA Champions League group stage matches (W33 D13), losing to Basel in 2013-14 and Valencia in 2019-20. Current boss Thomas Tuchel has only lost one of his 13 home group stage matches (W10 D2): a 2-1 defeat to Man Utd as PSG manager last season.
● This will be Thomas Tuchel’s 10th game in charge of Chelsea in the UEFA Champions League. The Blues have only conceded three goals under the German so far, which would be the joint-fewest through a manager’s first 10 games of a club in the competition (along with Fabio Capello at AC Milan and José Mourinho in Real Madrid), if they keep a clean sheet against Malmö FF.
● Malmö FF have lost their last five games in the UEFA Champions League by an aggregate score of 0-24, losing by 3+ goals on each occasion. The last team to suffer a longer run of consecutive defeats by 3+ goals in the European Cup/UEFA Champions League was Luxembourg side Avenir Beggen between 1969 and 1986 (a run of eight).
● Since Thomas Tuchel’s first UEFA Champions League game in charge of Chelsea on February 23rd, the Blues have kept six clean sheets in nine games in the competition. They’ve allowed an expected goals against figure of just 0.73 per game in this period, which is the lowest of any team to have been involved in each of the last two editions of the tournament.
● Only RB Leipzig (8) have conceded more goals than Malmö FF (7) in the opening two rounds of the 2021-22 UEFA Champions League, while only Besiktas (6.5) have a higher expected goals against total than the Swedish side so far (6.1).
● Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku has scored 14 goals in 18 appearances in European competition since the start of the 2019-20 season. In this period, the only two players who have scored more non-penalty goals than Lukaku (12) across the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League are Robert Lewandowski (19) and Erling Haaland (18).
● Since the start of the 2020-21 tournament, Chelsea midfielder Jorginho has initiated more sequences of play (171) than any other player in the UEFA Champions League. Indeed, he has started the joint-most sequences of play that ended in shots of any midfielder in this period (15), along with Toni Kroos.
