Sports Blog 04/11/2015: Match Preview – UEFA Champions League, Wednesday 4th November 2015

With both Manchester clubs winning last night, attention turns to the more precariously balanced of the remaining English sides, as Arsenal and Chelsea face near must-win games this Wednesday.

The Gunners arguably face the tougher task of the two; they travel to Bayern Munich at 7.45pm on BT Sport Europe. Barring a blip in the League Cup, October was a pretty great month for Arsenal; a 5 game unbeaten run in the Premier League (extending back to their 5-2 September win over Leicester) sees them in 2nd on goal difference, their most recent victory being a confident display against Swansea that saw a first Arsenal goal for Costa Rican World Cup star Joel Campbell (who goes into Wednesday night at a Super Mega PGM of 7-10). Even more important was a hard fought, and thrilling, 2-0 triumph over Bayern a fortnight ago, one that crucially kept their hopes of escaping Group F alive.



Frustratingly, as seems to always be the case at Arsenal, they are dealing with a rather unpleasant list of injuries at the moment. Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott, Wilshere, Welbeck, Ramsey, Arteta and Rosicky are all out for varying periods of time, leaving Arsenal’s bench increasingly threadbare. Yet, their starting 11 is currently in fine form, from a series of assured displays from Laurent Koscielny at the back, the creative powerhouse of Mesut Ozil in the middle and the freely-scoring Oliver Giroud (at 11/1 to score first) up front.

However, and it is a rather big however, Bayern’s run this season makes the Gunners’ current form look pitiful. Their loss to Arsenal a fortnight ago remains their lone defeat in 2015/16 (well, excluding a penalties loss to Wolfsburg in the DFL-Supercup); in fact they have only just dropped points in the Bundesliga, a 0-0 draw against Eintracht Frankfurt last weekend ending a 10 game league winning streak. Powering this monstrous machine are Robert Lewandowski and Thomas Muller; with 31 goals between them no-one can really compare to the Bayern duo at the moment, leaving them on Super Mega PGMs of 56-64 and 50-58 respectively.

Defeat on Wednesday would cause some serious issues for Arsenal as they try and progress to the knockouts, especially if Olympiakos beat Dinamo Zagreb as they did in October. Our Spreadex traders have their doubts, offering a Bayern Munich/Arsenal Goal Supremacy spread of 1.45-1.65 (alongside a Total Goals spread of 3.2-3.4); our clients, on the other hand, have found it hard to separate the two sides.

Whilst Chelsea’s task may be easier on paper, nothing can be taken for granted at Stamford Bridge at the moment; they host Dynamo Kiev at 7.45pm on BT Sport 2. A 3-1 loss to Liverpool at the weekend (the first league win of Jurgen Klopp’s tenure) made it 6 defeats in 11 league matches, a truly staggering collapse that would have seen a less bellicose manager fired likely at the beginning of October.



To make matters worse Chelsea’s Champions League run hasn’t exactly provided a respite from their disastrous domestic title defence. An opening 4-0 victory over Maccabi Tel Aviv suggested a turnaround back in mid-September; however, a 2-1 defeat to Mourinho’s former club Porto, and a 0-0 draw against their Wednesday opponents in Ukraine has hardly been rousing stuff, and leaves Chelsea in danger of exiting the competition at the first hurdle. It doesn’t help that the Blues have remained rather inert going forwards; he made be favourite to score first at 4/1, but the brutish Diego Costa has been making more waves for his disciplinary record than his meagre 3 goals tally. Willian, meanwhile, remains Chelsea’s top scorer, his 4 goals leaving him at a Super Mega PGM spread of 9-12.

Dynamo Kiev, on the other hand, have only lost twice this season, both times at the hands of Shaktar Donetsk. The first came in the Ukrainian Super Cup back in July, whilst the second in the league 2 and half weeks ago. That leaves Kiev with 1 loss, 1 draw and 9 wins in the Ukrainian Premier League, a quarter final spot in the Ukrainian Cup, and the 2nd place spot in the Champions League’s Group G after beating Maccabi Tel Aviv and drawing against Porto and Chelsea. It helps that, unlike Chelsea, Kiev have a couple of in-form forwards, with Andriy Yarmolenko (at a Super Mega PGM spread of 12-16) and Junior Moraes (at 10/1 to score first) on 7 and 6 goals respectively.

Like Arsenal, a loss on Wednesday evening would cause untold headaches for Chelsea whilst adding another nail into Jose Mourinho’s (somewhat self-built) coffin. Unlike Arsenal, our Spreadex traders are a bit more optimistic about the home side’s chances this evening, offering a Chelsea/Dynamo Kiev Goal Supremacy spread of 0.8-1 alongside a Total Goals spread of 2.35-2.55.