Standout stats
- How on earth am I going to research this part of the Champions League ( CL from hereon in)?
- . This is the 1st of a 2 legged affair so usual permutations apply.
- Zenit need ideally to keep a clean sheet and score to have something to take to the 2nd leg.
- Dortmund need to score to get that precious away goal and that's their, erm, goal.
Zenit
- only 3 wins in 13, 2 of which were Winter Break friendlies.
- Coming back from the winter break and into the Champions League might be advantage Dortmund here?
- only 2 defeats in 16 home matches
- only 1 win in their last 6 Champions League matches is unremarkable form, punctuated by 3 draws
- 3 consecutive home CL draws
Dortmund
- only 1 defeat in 11. As is de rigeur these days, they lost their league match directly before this Champions league encounter.
- Prior to that, 9 wins and a draw saw Dortmund back on form, as if you've been reading the research you'll know that they are back in good goalscoring form ( bar that last match).
- have scored and conceded in 11 of their last 13 matches away
- no draw in 10 Champions League matches
- 4 wins in their last 5 CL matches includes wins v Napoli., Arsenal and Marseille.
Profitable in play opportunities
- we cannot really take my usual statistical look at this match. It's down to instinct therefore and I feel Zenit will be ring rusty, this being their first match after the winter break. They were in poor form prior to the winter break and I think Dortmund will have too much over 2 legs.
- The Dortmund away defeat at the weekend was unexpected but we've seen teams of the calibre of Chelsea stuff up their league match before a CL match so I'll put that 3-0 loss down to that.
- I would base any interest here around siding with Dortmund.
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745pm - Aberdeen v Celtic - 1.7 away
Standout stats
- a collector's item to see a Celtic side at such a price.
- Aberdeen have lost 0-2 in the last 2 home encounters with Celtic
- Aberdeen beat Celtic in the Scottish Cup 1-2
- this is 2nd v 1st but there's a glaring 24 point gap
Aberdeen
- only 1 win in their last 4 matches
- 3 wins and 2 defeats in their last 5 home matches. The 2 defeats at home were 0-1, and 2 of the 3 wins were 1-0. All 3 wins were to nil
- have failed to score in only 5 matches this season
- 9 at home without a draw
- 5 0-0's at home at halftime
- 7 0-0's at halftime in their last 9 matches
Celtic
- unbeaten this season
- 15 consecutive wins keeping 13 clean sheets
- have not conceded in 6 away matches
- have scored in all matches this season
- scored 24 away goals in the 2nd half, and 13 in the last 1/4 hour
Profitable in play opportunities
- Aberdeen have a "tough to beat" vibe about them and this could be 0-0 for a while ( back 0-0 pre match to hopefully trade out at halftime?)
- Celtic have scored in all matches this season. A late late 0-1 winner?
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745pm - Luton v Wrexham - 1.53 home
745pm - Olympiakos v Man Utd - 2.22 away
- Mitroglou off to Fulham ( poor sod!!) is a big miss in Olympiakos's attack.
- United unbeaten in head to heads but under different manager and some 10 years ago!
Olympiakos
- the last 3 teams to beat them were non-Greek, PSG ( twice) and Liverpool. You get the feeling that Greek football is not offering Olympiakos a high level of competition.
- 15 wins and a 0-0 draw in their last 16 matches
- suddenly in the CL the defeats start coming for Olympiakos
- have beaten the likes of Arsenal ( twice) and Dortmund at home in the CL, so that is very interesting, but these were group stage matches and may have been dead rubbers for the 2 named sides.
Man Utd
- only 3 wins in 11 matches overall. Have beaten the likes of Swansea, Cardiff and Crystal Palace
- only 1 win in their last 5 matches away
- unbeaten in last 6 CL matches
- 4 consecutive clean sheets in the CL and an obvious tactic.
- unbeaten away in the CL in 2013 with 3 draws and a 0-5 win v Leverkusen
Profitable in play opportunities
- Again no real stats to work with, bar a general vibe that Olympiakos, while doing the business domestically, lost to PSG and Liverpool, the only 3 defeats in ages!
- Oly could shock, as shown with beating Arsenal twice and Dortmund, but as I said in the research, these were group matches and this is totally new for Olympiakos.
- Moyes focusses on clean sheets and that could be the tactic today. IF we base performance on overall recently, then I would not touch United with a bargepole., but they click and deliver in the CL.
745pm - Ross Co v Inverness CT ( ICT)- 2.4 away
Standout stats
- Ross are unbeaten when ICT visit in the last 3 meetings
- this is 9th v 5th in the SPL
Ross County
- only 2 defeats in 8 sees them in the best form for a while
- 3 wins and a loss in their last 4 home matches
- have scored and conceded in 6 of the last 8 matches
- only 2 clean sheets in 17 matches
- 13 at home without a draw
- 77% over 2.5 goals at home
- only 1 0-0 this season
Inverness
- only 2 wins in 9 matches
- lost 1-2 to Ross county as recently as 1st January
- 2 clean sheets in 3 matches
Profitable in play opportunities
- Ross County could concede, a poor recent run of 2 clean sheets in 17 matches.
- Inverness are in poor form, their 2 recent wins were 0-1 away wins so where do we stand now with the idea Ross could score?
- Not a match that interests me alas.
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