Tottenham Hotspur v CSKA Moscow Betting Tips

Both of these sides have had disappointing Champions League campaigns and neither of them can now make the knockout stages. This match is a battle for that third spot and a Europa League place.

After losing their unbeaten run in the Premier League against Chelsea a couple of weeks ago, Tottenham bounced back to claim a 5-0 win against relegation-threatened Swansea City. This result shows that their unbeaten start to the season was probably turning into a hindrance as Spurs simply looked to not lose rather than win. The shackles are now off and that was shown on Saturday.

As previously mentioned, Spurs have had a dreadful European campaign, winning just the one match against Wednesday’s opponents CSKA Moscow on match-day two. Although manager Mauricio Pochettino denies it, this is no doubt the Wembley factor. With Spurs having to play their home matches at a neutral venue, they have essentially played five away matches so far in Group E.

With the Champions League being such a different animal for Tottenham, it is hard to use their league form for any sort of analysis. Luckily England striker Harry Kane is back from injury and, with six goals in his last five games, he clearly has the quality to fire Tottenham back into contention.

It will be interesting to see how Pochettino sets up for this match. Does he actually want the hassle of the Europa League? I am not certain but professionalism should take charge here and many expect them to beat a poor CSKA side.

A dark shadow looms over this match for CSKA with rumours abound that manager Leonid Slutsky will resign from his post as soon as the final whistle blows at Wembley. This is something many have been waiting for and hopefully the Army Men can move in a more positive direction.

It has once again been a terrible European campaign for the Muscovites and they have to win this difficult match to ensure Europa League qualification. Usually they balance this out by doing well at home but league form has also been poor with CSKA currently third in the Russian Premier League – five points behind leaders Spartak Moscow.

As always we can expect a conservative performance from Slutsky’s men on Wednesday. Whilst this has brought home results in Russia in recent years, it has worked less this season with the Army Men serious lacking in goals.

On the other hand, you will always get a solid defensive display from CSKA and indeed they have the best defence in the Russian Premier League with just 11 goals conceded, keeping four consective clean sheets in the league. However, this style does not work in Europe as the opposition have far more quality and they generally end up conceding at least once or twice. Goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev has not kept a clean sheet in the Champions League since a 0-0 draw against Arsenal back in 2006.

I think we can expect a fairly simple Tottenham win on Wednesday – although not by much given CSKA’s general solidity. Firstly I would look at ‘Spurs to Win to Nil’ at odds of 6/4. CSKA really are terrible going forward, while Spurs are among the best defensively in the Premier League this season. Additionally, at a very eye-catching 7/1, ‘Tottenham to Win 2-0’ looks a very likely outcome. Pochettino’s side probably won’t go mad in this fixture, but they should have more than enough about them to both notch a couple and keep CSKA out at the same time.

Finally, as previously mentioned, this probably won’t be the highest scoring match going and so would certainly go with ‘Under 2.5 Goals’ at 11/10. Neither team are likely to be overly fired up for this match – Tottenham should be capable of scoring one or two, while a serious three from CSKA looks unlikely and thus a relatively low-scoring match should be on the cards.

See more Champions League tips here.