Chelsea Looking To Face Champions League Favourites In Semi Final

By Sam Darby on 04/04/2012 11:09

Chelsea take on Benfica in the Champions League Quarter Final Second Leg at Stamford Bridge tonight and either a win or a draw will be more than enough to see Chelsea into the semi final. Benfica were expected to win the first leg so with Chelsea going to Portugal and picking up a big win many will be predicting another victory for Chelsea tonight.

The winner of this fixture will take on Barcelona in the semi finals and both Barcelona and Lionel Messi were subject of the ValueChecker Steamers after their win over AC Milan last night. Barcelona were noted as shortening in the outright Champions League odds, there was an average drop in odds of 13.9% with Barcelona going from 2.02 to 1.88 whilst Lionel Messi shortened in the Top Scorer odds after his penalty brace, Messi’s odds dropped 11.5% from 1.33 to 1.29 in that market.

As for the Quarter Final that is yet to be decided, according to the Chelsea ValueChecker wikis it could be worth backing Chelsea to get a late goal as they have a habit of getting them in the Premiership. Chelsea scored in the 83rd and 90th minutes on Saturday and that wasn’t a rare occurrence, in the 10/11 Premiership season Chelsea scored 20 goals between the 76th minute and the final whistle whilst the season before they had an even better record scoring 26 goals between the 76th minute and the final whistle. In both seasons no team scored more goals in that time window.

The Chelsea ValueChecker wikis also highlight Chelsea’s ability to win penalties which seems to be stronger than most other teams. In the 10/11 Premiership season Chelsea were awarded 6 penalties and in the 09/10 season they were awarded a huge 11 penalties. Consider the fact that Chelsea are a decent bet in the ‘to get a penalty’ market when available and also give extra credit to Chelsea’s penalty taker on the day when selecting goalscorer bets, Chelsea’s penalty taker tonight is likely to be Frank Lampard.

The ValueChecker Wikis are proving a popular tool to find bets on a wide variety of events on ValueChecker and you can add to them by registering (just provide an email address and password) and sharing your knowledge.