Olympiakos v Marseille: Greeks can compete at home

Olympiakos v Marseille: Greeks can compete at home

Olympiakos were competitive in European competition last season and Dan Fitch thinks they will hold Marseille to a draw.

Olympiakos 2.44 v Marseille 3.4; The Draw 3.3
Wednesday 21 October, 20:00
Live on BT Sport Extra

Marseille back in Champions League after seven year absence

Marseille's improvement under Andre Villas-Boas receives another test as they compete in the Champions League.

Along with Marseille and Olympiakos in Group C, are Porto and Manchester City. Assuming Manchester City will win the group, the other qualifying place looks up for grabs between Marseille, Porto and to a lesser extent, Olympiakos.

After a bright start to the season in which Marseille beat PSG, their progress has slowed thanks to a four match run without a win, which included three successive draws. That sequence came to an end over the weekend when Marseille won 3-1 at Bordeaux, putting last season's second placed Ligue 1 club, up into sixth position.

Olympiakos are the reigning Greek champions and unbeaten in four Super League 1 games this season (W3 D1), beating Atromitos 4-0 at the weekend. In the play-offs they defeated Omonia Nicosia over two legs to reach the group stage of the Champions League.

Greeks difficult to beat at home

Olympiakos were pretty competitive at home in the Champions League group stage last season. They drew with Spurs, beat Red Star Belgrade and only lost 3-2 to the eventual winners Bayern Munich.

Having dropped down into the Europa League knockout stages after finishing third in their Champions League group, Olympiakos knocked out Arsenal, before narrowly losing on aggregate against Wolves. They drew 1-1 with Wolves in Greece and were ahead, despite being down to 10-men for most of the match after Ruben Semedo was sent off.

There is no real reason then to expect Olympiakos to lose against a Marseille side that have struggled to win matches in recent weeks. You can back Olympiakos at 1.72 in the Draw No Bet market, but with Marseille also a very capable outfit who have drawn three of their last four matches (W1), the stalemate could land at 3.3.