Wednesday 3rd October 2000hrs Tottenham v Barcelona Football – Europe – Champions League The Champions League returns this week and one of the games of match day two takes place in London with two sides who had very different fortunes last time out in the competition. Spurs dominated Inter Milan away from home but failed to take their chances and were punished by losing two late goals whilst the Spanish champions had a customary group stage cruise at home to PSV and have assumed top spot in Group B – where many expect them to finish. That said, Wednesday’s clash at Wembley has plenty of potential to be a cracker as Tottenham host Barcelona – continue reading for a match PSV. Although they’re up against the quality of Barca, there will be confidence within the Spurs camp based on their home form in last season’s Champions League which included a dismantling of Real Madrid – a similar performance will be required tomorrow preview and selected best betting tip.
Defeat to Inter Milan on match day one would have been a sore one to take for Tottenham and their head coach Mauricio Pochettino, and possibly a critical one as well. With Barcelona expected to finish top of the group the feeling is it would be a fight between Spurs and the Serie A club for second spot, with PSV waiting behind to pick up any scraps for qualification to the knockout stage. Not taking a point in the San Siro could be pivotal but the manner in which they lost would have been even more frustrating as they were much the better side but failed to turn that dominance into goals and were caught out in the closing stages – once by a wonder strike and some less than inspiring goal keeping. It now leaves them requiring to get points on the board against the group favourites, bearing in mind Inter will be hopeful of getting points against PSV on the same evening.
Barcelona have won the Spanish Super Cup, sit top of La Liga and are one from one in the Champions League – but that only tells half the story as they are currently on a really poor run of form which has seen them win none of their last three in the Spanish league, drawing at home to Girona and Athletic Bilbao and losing away to Leganes. It means Ernesto Valverde is coming under some scrutiny from the club’s supporters with failure in last season’s Champions League still fresh in the memory. Having taken a comfortable lead to Roma in the second leg of their quarter final tie. Barca capitulated and failed to reach the semi final stage for the third consecutive season. Their transfer dealings over the summer signalled their intent to compete on all fronts and that is still very much the aim but there needs to be serious improvement in their early season form if Barca are to be seen as serious contenders for the Champions League. They usually negotiated the group stage with a minimum of fuss and that was certainly the case when defeating PSV 4-0 at the Nou Camp last month. Lionel Messi scored yet another hat trick and continues to break records. He’ll need his team mates to support him for Barca to go deep in the competition, though.
Tottenham v Barcelona Betting Tip
This is a clash of two teams and two coaches who have a very similar outlook on football in that they have instilled a possession based approach, attempting to play as much as possible in the opposition’s half. Both Spurs and Barcelona have failed to show the consistency in terms of either results and performances thus far this season, though, so it will be interesting to see who is the most aggressive in that approach on Wednesday. Tottenham’s need is certainly greater having failed to take anything from the first game whilst Barca will look upon this as being their most difficult game in the section and would perhaps be content with a draw.
Tottenham will have been boosted by their 2-0 win away to Huddersfield at the weekend, particularly as Harry Kane got his first double of the campaign and looks to be hitting some form. It’s been very apparent that when Kane is out of sorts then Tottenham tend to struggle and the same can be applied to Barcelona when their talisman is not at his brilliant best – Valverde took the decision to start Messi from the bench on Saturday with a view to resting him for this.
Barca’s away form in the Champions League of late leaves a lot to be desired and they come into Wednesday’s with just one win in their last seven. As alluded to earlier, Spurs were strong at home in the last campaign and they’ll be confident of getting a result in this one. I was edging towards backing them in some way but instead have went for both teams to score. Barca have kept one clean sheet in their last six whilst Spurs have managed to keep the opposition out on just two occasions all season – it looks a solid bet.
Selection: Both teams to score 8/15 @ Ladbrokes
