By Antony Jordan
The second set of Champions League Quarter Final matches play around Europe this evening with the pick of the action coming from the French capital as PSG face another English side, in Man City, for the second round in a row as they look to repeat the home and away wins over Chelsea. The second match of the night comes from Germany as Wolfsburg take on a Real Madrid side basking in glory after defeating Barcelona in El Clásico at the weekend.
Can Man City and Wolfsburg triumph where Chelsea and Barcelona failed? We preview both matches with WilliamHill.com to provide our top Champions League picks.
PSG v Man City: 1.73 – 3.60 – 5.00
These two sides have met on just one occasion in previous European football as they played out a 0-0 draw in the league format group stage from the 2008/09 Europa League campaign that saw City top the group and PSG move through in third. We are certainly expecting more goals than that this evening with two of the world’s top strikers on show in Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Sergio Aguero, but the home side at the Parc des Princes will believe that they’ll be the ones to secure the advantage going into next week’s second leg as, having claimed the Ligue 1 title in the middle of March, they have had the opportunity to rest players for their push to claim their first Champions League victory.
They will be aided by the fact that key Man City players Vincent Kompany, Yaya Toure and Raheem Stirling are all out injured for this match as each of the trio adds massively to the defensive and attacking attributes of the EPL side. At times this season City have looked almost amateur in defence without their Belgian captain and if that occurs in this match you can be sure that PSG, and especially Zlatan who has two hat-tricks in his last three games, will take advantage. City, however are boosted by the return of Kevin De Bruyne and Samir Nasri for this match while goalkeeper Joe Hart has trained too but as their away form this season can be described as patchy, thanks to just four wins in their last ten (and three of these came against relegation threatened sides in the Premier League!), we see the French champions, who are still in contention for a domestic and European quadruple, securing a third straight victory against EPL sides.
Our best PSG v Man City bet is back the home win at odds of 1.73 with William Hill.
Wolfsburg v Real Madrid: 5.00 – 3.80 – 1.67
There is a massive difference in the history of these two sides in this competition with Real Madrid having won ten trophies and this is the sixth successive season that the Spaniards have reached at least the last eight stage of the competition, while their hosts are competing in just their second ever Champions League and this is the first time they have reached the Quarter Finals. The home side at the Volkswagen Arena will not be intimidated by these statistics however as they eased past PSV and Manchester United to top their group before seeing off Gent 4-2 in the last round to progress to this clash.
Wolfsburg have won all of their last four Champions League games to see them bring the longest current streak of matches into this clash with Real and they tend do well on home soil in this competition too with just one defeat in seven in front of their own fans. However, they are without a win in three games coming into tonight’s game and with Real having upset the odds to defeat Barcelona on Saturday night the visiting side will surely bring plenty of confidence to this game.
On top of that confidence is the goal scoring threat of Cristiano Ronaldo who already has 13 goals during this campaign and after he netted the winner against Barcelona he will believe that he can once again run rampant in Europe and fire his side towards bringing an advantage back to the Spanish capital and we are backing this outcome at the Volkswagen Arena.
Our top tip in this Wolfsburg v Real Madrid match is back the away win with Ronaldo to score anytime @ 2.75 in the William Hill Sportsbook!