Tottenham v Lyon: Visitors head to Lane in worst form of season

Since playing their last Europa League game in early December, Lyon’s form is nothing to write home about and as they are currently in their worst form of the campaign, it is not hard to tip a Tottenham triumph in the first leg of this last-32 encounter.

Lyon head to White Hart Lane having lost back-to-back games for the first time this season and 2013 has already seen them dumped out of the French Cup by third-tier outfit Epinal.

Meanwhile, Tottenham are unbeaten at home since a surprise defeat to Wigan in early November and have only lost one of their last 12 fixtures in all competitions.

Tottenham are 17/20 to beat Lyon here and Andre Villas-Boas’ team selections in the group stages indicated that this is a competition that he is taking seriously.

However, there is every chance that he will rotate goalkeepers for this clash, robbing Hugo Lloris of the chance to play against his former club.

This may be good news for Lyon as Spurs have lost four of the last seven games in which Brad Friedel has started and it is 10/3 that they establish a first-leg advantage.

Alternatively, the draw can be backed at 12/5 and is a more than possible scenario given that neither team has been beaten in the competition yet this season.

Speaking of Lloris’ ties with Lyon, the fixture brings a return to London for former Spurs midfielder Steed Malbranque, who is 9/2 to strike at any time in the 90 minutes.

Lyon manager Remi Garde will have no issues beating Tottenham either, after playing under Arsene Wenger for Arsenal previously.

Away from the match betting, predicting over 1.5 goals to be scored in the second half could reap some reward at 11/10.

Lyon conceded twice in the second period in two of their three group-stage games out of France, while Spurs scored twice after the break in two of their three fixtures at home.

These facts also make the 10/11 for Spurs to score at least twice in the entire game a difficult bet to turn down.

All odds and markets accurate as of publication’s time and date