Porto and Manchester City are champion bets

Porto is pretty big at odds of around 8-13 to win its UEFA Champions League Group A home match against Dynamo Kyiv.

The Portuguese Primeira Liga title winner has won its first two UEFA Champions League Group A games without conceding a goal, defeating Dinamo Zagreb 2-0 in Croatia before beating Paris Saint-Germain 1-0 in Portugal. It is the class act in the section and its home form contrasts starkly with the away form of its Ukrainian opponent on Wednesday.

Porto has won its last seven competitive home matches and not conceded a single goal in the process. Only Manchester City has beaten Porto at home since March 2011, with the Portuguese team`s last 33 home games resulting in 27 wins, five draws and that one aforementioned loss to the Citizens.

Dynamo has tasted defeat in each of its last four meaningful away matches and travels to Portugal off the back of a 1-3 home loss to Metalist on Saturday. The Ukrainian side should be 1-2 or even shorter to lose its fifth consecutive road game so snap up the 8-13 before it disappears from view.

Malaga will catch the eye at odds against for its UEFA Champions League Group C home match versus crisis club Milan. However, the Spanish team lost 1-4 to Barcelona and 0-4 to Real Madrid when Spain`s superpowers came knocking on its door last season and those results are enough to make it a no-bet game. On reflection, the market is about right.

Instead, back Manchester City to clean up Ajax and gets its UEFA Champions League Group D campaign back on track. One was expecting the Citizens to be around 8-13 to win in the Netherlands so the 5-6 that is available is a nice surprise.

Manchester City is on a par with Real Madrid and the Spanish side has beaten Ajax in Amsterdam 0-4, 0-3 and 1-4 since November 2010. Ajax is a long way from beating the best Dutch team these days and any of the English entrants in the UEFA Champions League should be capable of not only winning at the Amsterdam Arena but also winning by a decent margin.

There are grounds for thinking that Ajax and Manchester City will both score at least one goal and that the match will go over the 2.5 line. One can get odds of around 8-11 that both teams score and odds of around 5-6 about over 2.5 goals.

Ajax has scored in each of its last 14 competitive home games, while Manchester City has not fired a blank in any of its last 18 meaningful matches. The last side to stop the Citizens scoring was Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium in April when the Gunners ran out 1-0 home winners.

Speaking of Arsenal, it will look to get its shock 0-1 loss at Norwich out of its system by beating Schalke in UEFA Champions League Group B action at the Emirates Stadium.

The Gunners will be popular at bigger than even money with some bookmakers but they are coming up against a Schalke team that is third in the German Bundesliga, unbeaten in its last nine away games and arriving in London having beaten Borussia Dortmund 2-1 in Saturday`s massive Revierderby.

Leave Arsenal alone and stick with Porto and Manchester City. The Emirates Stadium market is on the money.

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24/10/2012     © Frixo 2024