Champions League betting – Arsenal vs Barcelona

Arsenal vs Barcelona betting preview, odds and tips

When Barcelona’s name was picked out of the hat for this round of 16 game no team would have been happy. Not least Arsenal after their demolition at the Nou Camp in last year’s competition where a fantastic performance from Lionel Messi sent the visiting Gunners packing. Lionel Messi has relatively short odds to repeat a hat-trick in this fixture at the price of 26.0 on SkyBet.

Arsenal

Arsenal have been in fantastic form lately and are unbeaten in their last 8 games. While mounting a good title challenge against Manchester United will most definitely be priority number 1 for Arsene Wenger, he will definitely want to give a good performance after their demolition last year. The newly fit Robin Van Persie has been on fantastic form lately with 9 goals from 5 games, so a bet on Van Persie opening the scoring or scoring anytime must be a good one for anyone believing Arsenal can get anything out of this game. He is priced at odds of 9.0 on Stan James to score first and at 3.6 on Stan James to score at any time in the fixture.

Arsenal have been scoring very freely lately and while Barcelona may not be the easiest team to break down with players like Sergio Busquets and Gerard Pique marshalling the defence. But this definitely will be a high scoring fixture; the odds on there being over 4 total goals in the fixture are decent at 2.62 on PaddyPower.

Barcelona

Barcelona are being hailed as the best team in Europe under Pep Guardiola and it would be a difficult to disagree with anyone saying they were. However they are not infallible, their latest domestic result against strugglers Sporting Dijon which ended their outstanding 16 game winning streak confirmed that. A team with world cup winners David Villa, Xavi, Adres Iniesta, Sergio Busquets, Gerard Pique and Pedro is not one to be taken likely by any stretch of the imagination.

Star striker David Villa is on deadly form of late and could be great value to score a brace at 9.0 on SkyBet. Apart from that in all honesty with Barcelona the threat could come from anywhere, the pace of Pedro will test Arsenal’s full-backs while Xavi and Iniesta’s tiki taka football could be too much for defensive midfielder Alex Song.

Overall I can see this being tighter than last year’s game at the Nou Camp and this can only be good news to any neutrals expecting good game of football, with Arsenal’s team at nearly full strength and Barcelona playing some outstanding football it will be a goodin that will be decided by one goal, Barcelona to pip it 3-2 has good odds of 32.0 on Bet Fred while anyone fancying Arsenal at this core line will find great value at 41.0 on Bet Fred.

Highlighted Bets:

To score a Hat-Trick Lionel Messi 26.0 SkyBet
First Goalscorer Robin Van Persie 9.0 StanJames
Anytime Goalscorer Robin Van Persie 3.6 StanJames
To score a brace David Villa 9.0 SkyBet
Barcelona 3-2 34.0 BetFred
Arsenal 3-2 41.0 BetFred

By John Fernandez

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