Betting Update; Villarreal v Arsenal with the bookmakers making Arsenal their 7/4 favourites

Added: (Mon Apr 06 2009)

Pressbox (Press Release) - After last weekend’s domestic fixtures, most firms have cut their prices on Arsenal to become the first English side to win in El Madrigal as Arsene Wenger’s side continue to finish the season in top form.

The Gunners have won their last 6 consecutive domestic games and with the return of Cesc Fabregas & Emmanuel Adebayor in Saturday’s 2-0 win over Manchester City (2 assists & 2 goals respectively), Skybet’s 15/8 is now the best price you will get on the visitors for the quarter-final 1st leg. In contrast, Villarreal slumped to a 3-0 loss at mid-table Almeria and even more importantly, lost key attacking threat Santi Cazorla to a season-ending injury. They have drifted to a top-price 9/5 with Bet365 & Boylesports.

So can Arsenal take one giant step to repeating their semi-final triumph of 2005/06 against this opposition? Well, it will certainly not be a walk in the park, regardless of form. The Yellow Submarine drew both group stage games with Manchester United 0-0 & not only are they unbeaten against English opposition at home, they are unbeaten against ANYONE at home in this competition. Manuel Pellegrini (in charge since 2004/05) has overseen a record of P10 W4 D6 L0 in Castellon, with P4 W1 D3 L0 in the knockout stages. An incredible 9 of these 10 overall matches have featured under 2.5 goals, with every single knockout game also seeing 2 or fewer. They have also only lost twice at El Madrigal in La Liga this season and in combative midfielders Marcos Senna & Sebastian Eguren, as well as defensive rock Diego Godin, they have the arsenal (excuse the pun) to put a spanner in the works of the away side’s slick passing movement, orchestrated by Fabregas.

This is the Gunners’ 4th quarter-final appearance in the last 6 years but in Wenger’s 12 year reign in North London only once has he progressed beyond this stage. Their away European record is also a worry coming here – their 1-0 defeat at Roma in the last 16 was their 3rd away knockout defeat in their last 4 and since 2004/05, they have a W3 D3 L4 record on the road in knockout fixtures. When they have played away in the 1st leg, this record reads W2 D1 L2. However, no English side has lost in the Champions League knockout stages to a foreign side since May 2007, underlying the gulf in class between the Premiership and every other European league at present. A remarkable 16 of their last 20 knockout games have been under 2.5 goals, dovetailing nicely with Villarreal’s low scoring home record, but the best price you will get on this outcome is Paddy Power’s 8/15. Though I wouldn’t begrudge anyone taking those odds, I believe there are better ways to extract value from this match.

Three of Villarreal’s 4 home knockout Champions League games have ended in draws and considering Arsenal’s low away win rate in this competition, I like that price here. Skybet are 9/4 on the stalemate and you feel that with the Gunner’s awesome home record in Europe (unbeaten since 2003/04), they would take a draw and ‘finishing the job’ at the Emirates. The Yellow Submarine’s home record is highly impressive and given that the draw is the outsider of the 3 possible match outcomes, that is a good price on this continuing.


Recommended Bets - Rec Bets: 1pt, Draw, 9/4



• All prices correct at time of writing.

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