Porto vs Arsenal Prediction and Betting Tips: Get behind Pepe to be carded at a big price
Arsenal travel to Portugal on Wednesday to take on Porto in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 clash. Here at bettingodds.com we have got Anthony Eadson in the tipping hot seat to provide us with his best bets.
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The Gunners thrashed Burnley 5-0 at Turf Moor on Saturday to continue their excellent start to the calendar year. Mikel Arteta’s men finished top of Group B which included PSV Eindhoven, Lens and Sevilla. Arsenal are well fancied to progress to the last eight of the competition but will be aware they have not reached this stage since all the way back in 2010.
Porto finished as runners-up behind Barcelona in Group H. The 2004 Champions League winners managed to accrue 12 points to sneak into the knockout phase at the expense of Shakhtar Donetsk and Royal Antwerp.
Sergio Conceicao’s side are the underdogs to make it to the quarter-finals priced at 9/2 with most firms to qualify. Arsenal on the other hand are as short as 1/8 with some bookmakers to make it to the last eight for the first time in 14 years.
Moving onto team news and Injuries have sidelined Ivan Marcano and Mehdi Taremi for the hosts. Assuming no additional injury setbacks, Mikel Arteta may opt for a starting XI similar to the one that secured a five-goal victory over Burnley last Saturday. Gabriel Jesus, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Jurrien Timber, Thomas Partey, Takehiro Tomiyasu, and Fabio Vieira continue their recovery in the treatment room.
Porto vs Arsenal Tips
Arsenal are around 7/10 to win the game in the standard match result market but for my main play of the evening I am backing them to win the game with Under 4.5 goals being scored at 10/11. First legs of Champions League knockout ties can often be low scoring affairs and since the away goals rule was abolished three years ago, 8 of the 32 first leg knockout ties have yielded under three goals. Take Manchester City and Real Madrid out of that sample and just two matches have featured Over 2.5 goals.
Arsenal have been in scintillating form since they returned from their winter break. With two 5-0 and one 6-0 victories arriving in the last month. Defensively they have been sound with Rollsroyce William Saliba as commanding as ever at the back.
The Premier League is as strong as we have ever seen it, and I believe the gulf between that and the Portuguese top-flight may be very prominent on Wednesday. Porto are lagging both Sporting and Benfica in their domestic standings this season and have struggled for goals, netting 23 fewer than Sporting who sit one place above them in second. This is not as strong a Porto side as yesteryear and a sixth win on the bounce for Arsenal looks likely here.
For my second selection, I am touting 40-year-old veteran defender Pepe to be carded. BetMGM have Pepe priced just below 6/1 to be booked on Wednesday with most other firms going around 2/1 and some such as bet365 as short as 15/8.
I feel this large discrepancy in price is due to BetMGM displaying Pepe’s name as Ferreira Kepler Pepe. This is to avoid confusion with Porto’s Brazilian ‘Pepe Aguino’ and is not something that is picked up by Oddschecker.
This is one of my favourite angles when a bookmaker displays a player name differently to the rest and the market does not necessarily catch on. The central defender should have his work cut out against an excellent Arsenal attack and after three yellows and a red already this season he looks a cracking bet at the current prices to find his way into the book. It is also worth noting that at the time of writing he is the biggest price of any Porto player to be carded in this fixture.
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