Inter Milan v Benfica – over 4.5 cards (51/50)
Portuguese and Italian teams are both notorious for the number of cards they receive. Descent, tactical fouls, cynical fouls, late tackles. Take your pick.
Benfica grinded out a 1-0 home win against Porto this weekend. Remove the dash on the score line, and that’s exactly how many cards were brandished in the game. 9 yellow cards and 1 red card.
In their opening 2-0 loss to Salzburg, Benfica lost Antonio Silva in the 13th minute via a straight red card. This certainly set the tone for the match, as the final number of cards reached a staggering count of 8-an uncharacteristically high amount for this early in the group stages.
Although a little less naughty, Milan certainly aren’t saints themselves. Their opening Champions League fixture with Real Sociedad elicited 6 cards in total, with both teams sharing 3 apiece.
Taking the aforementioned into account, we think that over 4.5 cards is the line to go for here.
Man United v Galatasaray – over 2.5 match goals (40/85)
Last week Man United lost to Bayern Munich 4-3. Man United conceding multiple goals was always part of the script, but putting three past Bayern Munich was not.
You will struggle to find a high scoring game like this, where the narrowly losing side never even looked like they would get a single point from the game. Man United’s goals came from absolutely nothing, then Bayern Munich fired back almost immediately.
Like Man United, Galatasaray’s defence has been found wanting at the start of the season. They went two nil down at home to Copenhagen last week, before salvaging a point (against 10 men) with just two minutes of normal time left to play.
Man United’s first Champions League match of the season had 7 goals, whilst Galatasaray’s had 4 goals. Perhaps there will be more of the same tonight.
Lens v Arsenal – Arsenal over 1.5 goals (8/11)
Arsenal have been impressive in front of goal at the start of the Premier League season- they’ve netted 15 times in the first 7 games. They were even more prolific during their Champions League opener against PSV, where they won 4-0, with goals from Saka, Trossard, Jesus and Odegaard.
Lens’ defence in Ligue 1 has been relatively watertight against the ‘minnows’ of the league, however, when facing off with PSG and Monaco, teams better aligned to Arsenal’s standards, they conceded three goals on both occasions. Although Lens achieved an impressive 1-1 draw in Sevilla, just like last year, Arsenal mean business. We think the Gunners’ class will shine through during their short trip to France.
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