The Champions League semi-finals first legs play out this Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, with Paris Saint-Germain bidding to make Arsenal their third straight English victims in the competition before Barcelona welcome Inter to Catalunya a day later.
Both ties see the visitors arriving in unconvincing form and we’re backing the Gunners and Barca to establish leads to defend in next week’s return fixtures.
Champions League semi finals best bets
Arsenal to beat Paris Saint-Germain @ 11/10
Barcelona to beat Inter & over 2.5 goals @ 5/4
Bet on the latest Champions League odds at Betzone
Gunners can claim second successive win over Parisians
Arsenal go into their Emirates leg of their semi-final against PSG knowing they have what it takes to best the French Champions.
The Gunners recorded a comfortable 2-0 win over Luis Enrique’s men in north London when the clubs met in the league phase back in October.
Odds of 11/10 about the home win look more than fair as a result, particularly given the Parisians have now won just once in their last four games.
Since losing 3-2 at Villa Park they’ve also drawn away Nice, most recently giving up their unbeaten Ligue 1 record in a 3-1 home loss to Nice they contested at full-strength.
Mikel Arteta’s side men have won all bar one of their six UCL home games this season, with the sole blip on their resume a virtually meaningless 2-2 draw with PSV in the round of 16 when they’d already won the first leg 7-0.
Tip: Arsenal to beat Paris Saint-Germain @ 11/10
Back Blaugrana to best visitors in midst of a sticky patch
The site of Inter priced up at 19/5 away to Barcelona initially had the underdog-backing radar pinging. After all, the Nerazzurri have been very hard to score against for much of this season’s Champions League and beat Bayern Munich in Bavaria two weeks ago.
However, the Italians are in the midst of a serious blip having lost three straight games without scoring since the 2-2 San Siro draw that booked their semi-final passage.
Barca are shorter than ideal at 3/5 to win, but the addition of the over 2.5 goals kicker bumps their price up to a more palatable 5/4.
Hansi Flick’s team have seen at least three netted in all six of their UCL home games this term – only once failing to net at least three themselves once in that sequence.
Inter themselves have scored at least twice in each of their last three outings in the competition, but have also conceded at least once in each of those three fixtures.
Tip: Barcelona to beat Inter & over 2.5 goals @ 5/4
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