Champions League
2011-10-18 - Otelul Galati vs Manchester United
A Sports Betting Pick by ROzsolt
Football: UCL group stage, Group C
Venue: National Arena, Bucharest
Tuesday 18th October – Kickoff time: 21:45 GMT+2
Otelul Galati
Otelul Galati will host Manchester United in Bucharest, in what will be the most important match in the club’s history. After the extremely low attendance in the match against Benfica (less than 10 000), Manchester’s stars seem to have attracted more spectators, so there should be more than 30 000 fans, not necessarily Otelul’s fans.
I will be surprised if Otelul will collect a point in this group, they may hope for a point in their match against Basel at home, but that is unlikely as well. The reason they ended up in this shameful situation is because they were satisfied with reaching the group stages of the UCL and collect the money from it and decided not to strengthen their squad to bring it to a more decent level.
Otelul probably thought that even if they invest a few millions in transfers, the chance to finish last in the group would still be a likely possibility, so they ended up keeping the money and sacrifice the performance.
Otelul is only 9th in their domestic league, 13 points behind leaders Dinamo, only scoring 8 goals in 10 games. It’s another proof that winning the title in the previous season was just an accident, they will probably not even reach a Europa League position at the end of this season, despite having the same squad that won the title.
Their previous match against Benfica was a perfect example of their inability to create chances and rise to a decent level, Benfica won the game without significant efforts, they were happy just to pass the ball around and needed just one spark, when Bruno Cesar’s fine finish earned them all points. Otelul had two attempts on target all match, which came in the dying minutes.
Probable Otelul line-up :
Rîpă, Sg. Costin, Perendija, Sălăgeanu
Giurgiu, I. Filip
Antal, Ibeh, S. Frunză
G. Paraschiv
Manchester United
Sir Alex Ferguson declared that he never heard about Otelul Galati before they were drawn in the same group and that is probably valid for most people around the world who have not read my Romanian league previews on goonersguide :p.
Surprisingly, the big favorites of the group will travel to Romania after not being able to win any of their previous two games in this group, which has not happened since 1998.
Manchester played in the exact same place in the UCL qualifiers seven years ago, but on the old stadium in front of 60 000 people, defeating Dinamo Bucharest (1-2) with one of the goals scored by Ryan Giggs.
I don’t think that I need to say too much about Manchester United, this club has all the exposure that punters may need to make an opinion on how powerful they are, there is not much to analyze because the difference between the two teams is huge, from all points of view.
Rio Ferdianand is the most important absence for Sir Alex, but Vidici and Jones should be strong enough to hold back Otelul’s offensive ambitions, if there will be any. Cleverley, Gibson and Rafael have also been ruled out.
Probable Manchester line-up :
Fabio, Jones, Vidici, Evra
Valencia, Carrick, Anderson, A. Young
Rooney, Javier Hernandez
The Betting Verdict
There is a saying in Romanian that goes like “sa nu ne facem de ras” which stands for let’s not get laughed at in an approximate translation and I heard that sentence several times before the match, even coming from Otelul’s president. This is a clear indication of what Otelul’s objective is for this game, not conceding too many.
Unfortunately for them, Manchester needs the points after their disappointing start, so they can’t afford not to win this match, the only question is how many goals will they score.
However, there were some games in the UCL between Romanian and English clubs and when they travelled to Romania, both Arsenal and Chelsea performed rather disappointing. Arsenal managed to win against Steaua in 2007 thanks to a late Robin Van Persie goal, but Chelsea’s game in Cluj against CFR ended goalless. So there were two games in which the hosts couldn’t score, but managed to hold off a much stronger opponent.
I don’t think it will be the case in this match, I have to say that Otelul is the weakest side that Romania gave to this competition lately. With Manchester probably having total control of the possession, I just cannot imagine Otelul scoring a goal, so I am going for Manchester to win to nil.
The Statistics :
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The Pick :
Otelul Galati 0-3 Manchester United
BEST BETTING TIP :
Take Manchester United to win to nil at 1.66 Bet365Confidence: 9/10
