Friday March 15th , 2013

Inter and Chelsea made it two from two again yesterday and also, anyone reading the preview in full will have probably spotted this "with the visitors already having conceded twice at both Stuttgart and Ajax, looking especially vunerable aerially in both and with Terry, Ivanovic, Cahill all poising a big threat from set pieces and having 15 goals between them this season, whomever starts from that trio ,will probably fancy their chances of adding to their tally at circa 7.5-8.5 to score at anytime". John Terry was the only one of the trio to see action and scored the second goal, he was circa 8.0 in the anytime market. Further good news was that Benfica (see foot of the page) made it through to the last eight and we will take a look at our position on them after today's draw for the quarter finals.

Follow up email at 16.30 UK time today with the Saturday morning J-League matches and any late news for tonight's fixtures.

France Ligue 2:

Three selections today......

Le Mans- Nimes

Le Mans are without Chinese defensive midfielder Jiaqi Zhang (4-1-0 ..... lost one of four when he has played), left back Jason Buaillon (18-0-5) and left winger Olivier Thomert (12-0-1), We have spoken many times about how they had a squad prepared for third tier football and that a last minute reprieve from relegation, left them short of Ligue 2 quality. Lack of options in certain positions is all too apparent ,they look short on the left tonight and having named just four defenders, have added a third choice and inexperienced defender to midfield, where he might be asked to play out of position. All is not well at the club, salaries have been paid late again and they have only won five of their last 21 starts, those wins came against Laval, Gazelec, Chateauroux, Niort and Sedan, all are in the bottom eight and four were in the drop zone when they played Le Mans. They have beaten just one top 7 team all season, a shock 2-0 win at Caen, this is a match we have discussed ofte n and one Le Mans should have lost by 3-4 goals !

Nimes have served us well recently and are having a tremendous season, they remain in sixth just four points off the automatic promotion spot, but their challenge has stalled a little with a 3-0 defeat at Guingamp and 1-1 home draw with Tours last week, in what was a wide open game, with chances at both ends. This looks on paper a good opportunity to get back on track and at least prolong their season a little longer. However, they will have to do so without defensive midfielders Jonathan Parpeix (16-0-1) and Abdelmalik Hsissane (13-0-0 .... won six of his last seven starts), offensive midfielder and top scorer Vincent Gragnic (25-13-2) . Granic has not missed a game in eight months, the first two games of the season, during which Nimes didn't score a goal. They managed one last week and as I said, could have scored more, but equally, looked vunerable to a team prepared to attack them.

Where does this leave us ? Hosts are better going forward, short of defensive options, especially on the left and just one point outside the drop zone and facing a six pointer with Laval next week, must feel they need a result from this game. Nimes will obviously miss those key players and will allow Le Mans chances and miss the threat of Gragnic, but right winger Nicolas Benezet ( 24-8-6) could hardly be in better form ( 10-6-4) in the last three months and could have a field day on his flank and both he and Seydou Koné ( 23-5-1) who scored both goals in a 2-1 win in the reverse fixture ( one assisted by Benezet), will be looking forward to this.

I feel we might see goals, but I am going to take Nimes with the draw no bet option, the home squad simply do not look strong enough, four of the likely starters today are aged 19 or younger and I do not think a season in the third tier would have done them any harm, maybe it will come next season ! 1.25 units Nimes level ball 2.26 asian line/ Ibramarket.

Le Mans : Janot, Makaridze, Cuffaut, Baby, Koné, Kassai, Thomas, Baal, Landel, Zito, Omrani, Sanson, Sido, Cissé, Sylla, Mendes, Belfort

Nîmes : Merville, Al-Shaïbani, Amewou, Bénézet, Benyahia, Boche, Bouby, Fanchone, Haddou, Koné, Nouri, Ogounbiyi, Poulain (c), Robail, Sidibé, Sbaï.

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Good Luck.

Thursday February 14th

Europa League:

The last ten runnings of the Europa League/ UEFA Cup have seen seven winners from the Iberian Peninsula, five Spanish winners and two Portugese, they also supplied four losing finalists between them and all four semi finalists last year, the other three winners came from Eastern Europe, with two Russian winners and one from the Ukraine.

The Eastern teams are at a disadvantage early, coming off their winter break, but once we are in mid/late March, the pendulum swings the other way and they are fresher and at their peak, when others are beginning to tire.

This says as much about how these countries view the competition than anything else, they always show it respect and want to do well. Italian teams have a terrible record and since it was renamed the Europa League, only one has got past the Round of 32 and they lost in the Round of 16.

There are three Serie A teams left in the competition, Lazio, Napoli and Inter, but all have other major objectives for the season and I would offer a word of caution about all of them, not to say that they cannot win/ progress, just that I doubt that they are overly bothered.

The final is in Amsterdam this year and we can expect Ajax to be very motivated, but they might well have to see off Chelsea in the round of 16..

Atletico Madrid and Levante are the only two Spanish teams remaining and are drawn to face each other in the Round of 16, Atletico are looking to win for the third time in four years and given their league position, 12 points behind Barcelona and 11 clear of the fourth placed team, they already look assured of a Champions League spot for next season and I see no reason why they will not again be fully focused and this looks a decent draw for them, they have to be favourites IMO and 8.0 is a perfectly fair price, although a little skinny for my liking in a 32 runner race.

Despite facing a difficult tie with Bayer Leverkusen and going toe to toe with Porto for the domestic title, Benfica keep catching my eye at 29.0 in the outright market, they would play either Dynamo Kiev or Bordeaux next and I would favour them to beat either. They are unbeaten domestically, 14-4-0 and were a little hard done by in the Champions League. They look committed to this and all the big guns have travelled and they do have some very impressive weapons ....

Benfica: Artur Moraes, Paulo Lopes ,Bruno Varela, Melgarejo, Maxi Pereira, Luisinho, Luisão, Garay, Roderick Miranda , Jardel , André Almeida, Ola John, Enzo Perez, Salvio, Matic, Nicolás Gaitán, Urreta , André Gomes, Rodrigo, Lima, Cardozo.

They can field a starting eleven full of internationals and have a very nice mixture of experience and exciting young talent. Garay, Perez and Gaitan were all in the Argentine squad for the recent friendly in Stockholm, Salvio was in the squad for the previous international and is the youngest of the quartet. They have the class to go deep in this if they wish and the squad they have taken to Germany looks a statement of intent.

Leverkusen host Augsburg on Saturday afternoon, what is it with the Bundesliga ? Give them an extra day for goodness sake ! They are going to make some rotation between the two games of course, boss Sami Hyypiä admitted that and also that "a couple of our players have slight problems", refusing to give fiurther details. Almost four thousand visiting supporters have tickets for the game, which will make for a very good atmosphere, if pushed, I like the visitors with the handicap start, but must admit that +0.25 ball at sub 2.0 is not my favourite quote and if we are taking the outright anyway, I am happy to stick with that. 1 unit Benfica to win Europa League outright 26.0 + , there is bigger in a place or two.