Porto v Chelsea: Say 'no' to both teams to score

Porto v Chelsea: Say 'no' to both teams to score

Chelsea may struggle to secure themselves a first leg lead but the game's best bet is that we see at least one clean sheet here, says Jamie Pacheco.

Porto fully focused on Europe

The bad news for Porto is that they're not going to be defending their Portuguese Superliga title as Sporting Lisbon are too far ahead at the top of the table. The good news is that Sergio Conceicao's players can put all their energy and thoughts into the Champions League.

The fans would probably take the Superliga title over progress in this competition if given the choice, but the money men at the club know the value of a place in the semi-finals.

They needed a very late goal to beat Santa Clara at the weekend but then again Porto would have had this match very much on their minds. And no-one at the club will have forgotten their monumental effort in knocking out Juventus a few weeks ago.

WBA horror show can't be ignored

Had Chelsea done as they were meant to - they were hot favourites to beat West Bromwich Albion on Saturday - you'd have no problems justifying why they were hot-favourites going into this match.

Everyone is allowed a bad day at the office and the Blues did play a large chunk of the game with 10 men. But still. West Brom are second-bottom for a reason and scoring has been an issue for them all season, so for Chelsea to concede five was pretty shocking.

The team looks much better under Thomas Tuchel than it did under Frank Lampard. That's no great surprise given the difference in experience between the two. But I still think there's been a bit too much tinkering going on under the German. I honestly don't know who he considers to be his best XI when everyone is fit and I'm not sure Tuchel does either.

Trust Porto in their element

Chelsea have gone out a bit in price since that WBA catastrophe but I'm not sure they've gone out enough. That's not so much because of that one bad result. It's more that this Porto side are very much in their element here. When a big-name team comes to town, they make life tough and ugly for their opponents.

It was a strategy that worked well ahead of that 2-1 win over Juve in the first leg and is not one to abandon. Lay the visitors at even money or thereabouts.

Porto have been excellent on home soil this term. They won three out of four (drawing with Man City in the other) in this competition, scoring seven and conceding just the once (against Juve).

Yes, this one isn't at home as such (both legs are in Seville) and in Sergio Oliveira and Mehdi Taremi they're missing perhaps their two most likely sources of goals.

With those two factors in mind, the advice here would be a lay-to-back of Chelsea.

Oppose them at 1.9 before the game on the Exchange and a Porto goal or a first half without any goals will allow you to lock in a healthy profit by backing them in-play at around 2.6 or greater.

Stats point to at least one clean sheet

The over/under 2.5 goals market is pretty undecided as to how this might pan out but there may be a better option in the 'both teams to score' market. And it's with the 'no' option which would have paid out in three of Porto's four home matches (this is technically a home match) this season in the Champions League. It would also have paid out in seven of Chelsea's last eight games in all competitions. That includes, by the way, two matches against Atletico Madrid which they won 1-0 and 2-0.

I wouldn't be too surprised if Chelsea focus on keeping things tight, while Porto consider 0-0 a decent result with away goals coming into play for the second leg.

As per above, Porto are missing both of their two most likely scorers so their own chances of getting a goal are somewhat blunted, while their defensive record in this competition suggests the Blues may not find it so easy to score.

All of which means 0-0 is more of a lively runner than one would at first think but 1-0 either way, also very possible, would see us collect as well. As would a few other less likely scorelines.

Mount the pick of the goalscorers

Just because I think there will be at least one clean sheet doesn't automatically mean that there will be. It's not impossible that one team keeps one (and we win our bet) and the other team scores two or three. So it's worth browsing the anytime goalscorer market anyway.

The prolific Sergio Oliveira is suspended. He has 17 goals for the season in all competitions, of which 10 were penalties. So if you were to go with him (which you can't anyway) you'd have mostly relied on Porto getting a spot-kick.

Taremi, their next most likely source of goals, is also suspended.

So if it's a Porto man you want to side with Moussa Marega (six goals in the league, two in Europe) is available at 5/2. That's not much of a price though.

Timo Werner (7/4) will almost certainly get a game, whether it's out wide or through the middle and that man Olivier Giroud (7/5) may lead the line in a big game once again.

If pushed I'd probably go with Mason Mount at 16/5. He's got 10 for the season, two in his last three and may be on penalty duty should Jorginho not play.