Fenerbahçe v Monaco Betting Tip

The UEFA Champions League qualifying action continues on Wednesday evening, where it’s the tie between Fenerbahçe and Monaco, at least on names alone, that looks to be the pick of the action.

On paper this appears to be a good match up. Fenerbahçe finished as the runners up in Turkey last season, while Monaco secured third position in France’s top flight.

Because of the relative standing of their leagues in European football, as well as their respective co-efficient rankings, this will be the entry point for both into the Champions League qualification process, so it will be interesting to see how they fare under competitive conditions at this point of the year.

The early betting market has also struggled to separate these two with both coming in at odds of 17/10. If backing a winner here, on paper, it would make sense to back Fenerbahçe at this price, especially since they’ll be playing with the home advantage. Having said this, there’s a better option. At odds of 2/1, ‘Fenerbahçe To Score Over 1.5 Goals’ is very appealing.

The Turkish outfit have scored two or more goals in seven of their last ten home matches and in four of their last five, including the last three. These are encouraging stats alone, but when coupled with Monaco’s defensive record, particularly on the road, things start to look even better. Just as the hosts have scored two or more in seven of their last ten at home, Monaco have conceded two or more goals in seven of their last ten when playing away from home.

If we’re to take these two sets of figures and assume they are a reasonable indication of future performance then we can say that there is a 70% chance of two or more home goals in this match. With this in mind, the fact that 2/1 is offered about this selection (implied 33% chance) means that there is some exceptionally good value on offer.

If we were also to look at Monaco’s recent European record it would only further encourage this bet, as we can see that the French side have traveled particularly badly on the continent. From their two away matches in last season’s Champions League qualifiers they conceded a total of four goals and subsequently failed to make it through to the group stages. Having then entered the Europa League, they failed to get out of their group and conceded in all three of their away matches, letting in a total of six goals. On top of this, the side from the principality conceded an average of 1.63 goals in their away matches in Ligue 1 last season. A somewhat poor statistic for a side who finished second in the league.

Overall, this is a tie that the bookies estimate will be very close, and it may well be; However, Monaco have leaked goals for fun on the road in both their recent matches and in their most recent European matches, so it is expected that, even if they do come through this match with a favourable result, they will concede goals. Fenerbahçe will be very aware of Monaco’s defensive woes and will surely be looking to take advantage in this first leg.

See all of our UEFA Champions League qualifier tips here.