Top 3 bets for Wednesday's football & cricket

Are Barcelona on their way out of the Champions League?

Barcelona travel to Bayern Munich in grave danger of being knocked out of the Champions League. The Spanish giants are in second place in the group, but Bayern have been head and shoulders the best team in this group, winning all five games including a 3-0 win at the Nou Camp. If Barca can’t upset the form book and take three points in Munich, all Benfica need to do is beat bottom club Dynamo Kiev, who have one point from their five games, to go through.

Multi-Bookings (310-390)

This looks an uphill battle for Barca to say the least, and as the desperation levels rise, expect the discipline to go and the tackles to start flying in. This is one of the worst Barcelona sides in recent memory, and none of the current squad want to be known as being part of the Barcelona team that fell into the Europa League. The problem is, Bayern are a much better team. Coach Julian Nagelsmann has assured Benfica he intends to play his best possible team, and that has sparked a flurry of buying in our bookings markets, particularly Multi-Bookings.

Do Manchester United have anything to play for in their game?

Ordinarily there would be nothing to play for when United welcome Young Boys to Old Trafford. But with a new manager in Ralf Rangnick, bringing with him new ideas and a new formation, whoever does get the nod tonight will not want to pass up the chance to catch the eye of the experienced German. Young Boys are bottom of the group and cannot qualify, despite beating United in the opening game of this group. Revenge will be on the mind of United’s players who battled back from that early upset to qualify as group winners with a game to spare.

Both Team to Score and Man United to Win (boosted to 9/5)

Young Boys drew 3-3 with Atalanta last time out, their first point since that 2-1 win over United to start the campaign, but on both occasions they’ve shown plenty of attacking intent, as well as weaknesses at the back. This price boost has proved of interest to some punters, although new boss Rangnick will be disappointed if his team don’t keep another clean sheet, having show renewed defensive prowess in their weekend 1-0 win over Crystal Palace.

Can England bounce back on day 2 of the Ashes?

England have their backs to the wall already, just one day into the Ashes Series, and that was cut short by the weather! Losing a wicket first ball was the first of many disasters that saw Joe Root’s side bowled out for 147 just as the players broke for tea. Tonight the bowling attack need to stand up and be counted. For the first time in 15 years England went into an Ashes Test without both their old bowling warhorses, James Anderson and Stuart Broad, so tonight it’s up to Mark Wood, Ollie Robinson, Chris Woakes, Ben Stokes and spinner Jack Leach to get the tourists back into this. One bad session and England could be staring defeat in the face already.

Australia Runs (346-361)

Whether it’s patriotic punters or they genuinely feel Australia will underperform with the bat too, we’ve seen some selling of Aussie runs as they prepare to bat tonight. With Anderson and Broad watching on, it will fall to the likes of Ollie Robinson, who has been compared to the great Glenn McGrath with his style and height to drag England back into the game. Ben Stokes is fresh back to Test cricket after a prolonged break, but in big moments big players come to the fore, and England will hope he can have an impact.