Champions League
2009-02-24 - Arsenal vs AS Roma
A Sports Betting Pick by Leito
Football: Europe, UEFA Champions League
Tuesday, 24th February 2009 - Kickoff 19:45
One of the champions league "last 16" games see Arsenal welcome Roma at the Emirates stadium.
ARSENAL (England - 5th)
The gooners are struggling to get in the champions league places this season. Goals are a problem and they often strugle to break teams down like Sunderland and West Ham and often win without impressing much like 1-0 vs Portsmouth.
They are 7-4-2 at home but many of the good results were at the starts of the season. Arsenal had 3 goalless draws in the last four games so they are not in good goalscoring form.
It has been the same story in the CL group. Fenerbahce earned a goal-less draw here and they beat Dynamo Kiev thanks to a late goal by Bendtner.
Arsenal don't have much european experience with a squad full of youngsters. I think the Gunners had the easiest CL group and still fininshed second.
AS ROMA (Italy - 6th)
Roma have not been impressive in their travels in Serie A at all this season with a 4-2-7 record and currently lie in 6th place.
However they did play well in the group stages of the Champions League on their travels. Wins over Bordeaux and Cluj away were balanced by a 0-1 loss to chelsea.
This may suggest that Roma do have significant european experience. This might just be the difference between the two sides. Roma also finished 1st in the group ahead of Chelsea in the group stages.
TEAM NEWS
Arsenal have a long list of injuries. Their extremely influencial playmaker Cesc Fabregas will still be out for about 6 weeks along with Tomas Rosicky and Theo Walcott.
Adebayor and probably Eduardo will miss the match as well as Andrei Arshavin who can't play in Europe for Arsenal this season.
Roma have Casseti and Panucci are injured but important players like Perrota and Rossi rested.
Roma also possess a great attacking threat with Francesco Totti, Daniele De Rossi and former Gooner Julio Baptista.
HEAD 2 HEAD
These two sides have met twice before with Arsenal wining 3-1 in Italy and playing a 1-1 draw in London.
THE BETTING PREDICTION
Despite Arsenal's extended run in the Champions League, this current lineup of "kids" lack the required European experience and haven't faced "big guns" of Europe yet.
Roma are close to it in my opinion. They played very well on their travels so far and might just adopt a defensive approach looking for a likely goalless draw or maybe even hit on the counter.
I can't see Arsenal beating Roma in this game bue to the Londoners poor recent form and loos of key players.
The Statistics :
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Pick :
Arsenal 0-0 AS Roma
Gooner’s Statistical Value Bet
Take AS Roma AH +0.5 to leave with a draw or better.
