Fast-starting PSG to force Chelsea to come from behind at Bridge
Published:Trailing 3-1 against Paris St-Germain, it’s not quite mission impossible for Chelsea to progress from their Champions League quarter-final second leg, but an early goal for the visitors will make it that much trickier.
Few teams in Europe possess the abundance of high-quality forwards PSG can call upon and for that reason they arrive in west London in great shape to end Chelsea’s European adventure.
The Blues may begin the contest as the 17/20 favourites to win the match, with the draw 13/5 and PSG the 10/3 outsiders, though the visitors’ 2/7 odds to qualify tell the real story of the tie at the half-way stage.
A convincing 3-0 win at home to in-form Stoke will have given Chelsea belief they can perform the kind of heroics that saw Napoli swept aside 4-1 when facing the same scenario, at the same stage of the competition en-route to glory during the 2011/12 campaign.
However, Jose Mourinho’s side may have to come from behind to effect it. Even bereft of Zlatan Ibrahimovic – a total non-entity in the first-leg anyway – Laurent Blanc’s side seldom hang about in the opening period of matches.
Ezequiel Lavezzi’s third-minute rocket made it the fifth time in PSG’s last eight competitive matches in which they had scored within the opening quarter hour – something they are juicily priced at 11/2 to repeat again at the Bridge.
Meanwhile a safer bet, but still a profitable-looking option would be taking Ladbrokes up on their offer of 29/20 of PSG scoring their first goal before half-time, something they’ve achieved in 10 of their last 13 matches.
On a positive note for the boys in Blue, though, a come-from-behind win which could book them a place in the last four is a sizzling 9/1 option.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
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