Standard de Liege vs FC Zurich
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The only game that interests me today is the UEFA Champions League encounter between Belgian giants Standard de Liege and Swiss giants FC Zurich.
This interests me because Standard de Liege aren’t in the same position that they were last year. In fact, they’re considerably worse off. You may recall that my personal viewpoint regarding Standard de Liege was that they relied far too heavily upon Tchite, Witsel, and Defour for the vast majority of the season, although it’s probably fair to say that Mangala joined that trio in terms of importance. Well, since the end of last season, Standard de Liege have already sold Witsel; he’s gone! They’re also extremely likely to rest Steven Defour, who is allegedly trying to force through a move to Sporting Clube de Lisboa, and also French defender Mangala for a similar reason. That basically leaves Tchite and Medhi as far as creativity/goal threat goes and that really isn’t enough. Standard aren’t good enough at the back to hold slender leads; their defence is weak, especially without Mangala. I don’t rate them right now with the above in mind and 4/5 on them winning this game doesn’t sit well with me at all, especially with Ciman out injured for this game too – that’s two of out of Standard’s back four unlikely to feature! Standard did nothing against Racing Genk in the Belgian Super Cup despite facing ten men for the vast majority of the game. You’d normally attribute a 1-0 loss in a game like that to wayward finishing but Standard simply didn’t create chances, let alone fail to score them! They may have brought in Nacho Gonzalez to help out but he’s not match fit yet – I doubt he’ll have an impact here.
FC Zurich have had a bit of a mixed start to their campaign too, to be fair. However, theirs is more down to luck than lost players as all their key men (e.g. Djuric, Kukuruzovic etc.) are still at the club. Their 1-0 loss at Sion was acceptable; Sion are a good side. Their 2-3 loss against Servette was bizarre but strangely acceptable, again. Whereas I don’t believe Servette to be anywhere near as good as FC Zurich, they are still a bigger club than FC Zurich and are still arguably the biggest in Switzerland so it’s not stupid to expect these kind of results when Servette face Basel, FC Zurich, or Grasshoppers Zurich, for example, although I must confess that I wholly believed FC Zurich would beat Servette. FC Zurich have a good squad of players, though – they proved to be very adept when playing in Europe a season or two ago despite facing some very tough sides and even recorded a legendary 0-1 victory at the San Siro against AC Milan so don’t underestimate FC Zurich here – they love to upset the odds; they just hate being favourites!
Ok, this game is not a banker but not many of the qualifiers are. I just think Standard are way too short here with so many important players either not playing or likely to not feature here. FC Zurich are good enough to score a couple of goals here, possibly even springing a surprise win; who knows? I wouldn’t touch the 1×2 market as a straight bet either way. However, the possibility of laying Standard de Liege at evens is one I can’t pass up on here – they’re just not worth 4/5, in my view.
Team news – Standard de Liege miss Ciman.
Verdict: Lay Standard de Liege at evens.
Wednesday’s Picks
My tips:
UEFA Champions League:
HJK Helsinki vs Dinamo Zagreb (5) 1-0
FC Copenhagen vs Shamrock Rovers (8) 2-0
OB Odense vs Panathinaikos (6) 2-1
Maccabi Haifa vs Maribor (6) 1-0
Standard de Liege vs FC Zurich (4) 1-2
Rosenborg BK vs Viktoria Plzen (5) 1-2
SL Benfica vs Trabzonspor (8) 2-1
Ecuadorian Primera A:
Manta vs Olmedo Riobamba (5) 2-1
Imbabura vs Independiente (4) 1-1
El Nacional Quito vs Deportivo Quito (6) 1-1, at least one red card in this game
Barcelona Guayaquil vs LDU Loja (6) 2-1
Liga de Quito vs Emelec Guayaquil (7) 1-0
Deportivo Cuenca vs Espoli Cayambe (7) 2-0
Faroese Meistaradeildin:
Vikingur Gotu v EB/Streymur (6) 2-2
Finnish Ykkonen:
AC Oulu vs KPV Kokkola (7)
Japanese J-League:
Kashima Antlers vs Gamba Osaka (4) 1-2, at least one red card in this game
Enjoy your free betting tips!
French Super Cup:
Olympique Lyonnais vs LOSC Lille