Juventus – Monaco

Juventus takes on AS Monaco in Turin as Champions League football is back – with the Italian Champions looking to avoid becoming another big scalp for the French side.


Juventus has been rather disappointing lately, barely winning against weak opponents in Serie A or even losing (1-0 against Parma over the weekend. It could be argued that the league is not a priority anymore and they did turn up to do the job when it mattered, beating Fiorentina 3-0 on the road in Coppa Italia after losing the first leg 1-2 and demolishing Dortmund in Germany with the same scoreline in UCL. However, weak performances can add up and affect morale even if they did not count in the standings – and the horrible loss against Parma will surely not give Juve confidence.

Monaco is on the back of a convincing 3-0 win at Caen, clearly playing the best football they played all season right now. They have been incredibly effective in the Champions League and to get past a red hot team like Arsenal was a massive achievement. Monaco lost just twice in the last 12 matches, against PSG and Arsenal – with the Arsenal loss being somewhat planned, as Leonardo Jardim clearly approached that 2nd leg knowing he had goals to spare.


Team news & lineups:

Juve has a number of serious injury worries, missing key players like Pogba, Asamoah, Caceres and possibly Pirlo as well (he`s 50-50 to start). Romulo and Marrone are out as well. Monaco will only miss backup striker Lacina Traore, with Bakayoko doubtful.

Juventus: Buffon – Evra, Chiellini, Bonucci, Lichsteiner – Vidal, Pirlo, Marchisio – Pereyra – Morata, Tevez

AS Monaco: Subasic – Kurzawa, Abdennour, Wallace, Fabinho – Toulalan, Kondogbia, Moutinho – Martial, Ferreira-Carrasco, Berbatov

Juventus will be keen to avoid Arsenal’s fate and be more patient and cautious with their attacking approach. If they do start leaving open spaces, it could be a disaster, especially now that Monaco has counterattacking maestro Ferreira Carrasco fit in the starting lineup (he came on late against Arsenal in both matches and created havoc). Considering Monaco’s defensive and counterattacking brilliance in this type of away match and looking at Juve’s shaky form, my tip is Monaco +1,5 handicap. it should be close and if Monaco loses, it will likely be by just one goal. Pogba will also be sorely missed by Juve. Prediction: Juventus – Monaco 1-1.

Pick: AS Monaco (+1 Asian Handicap)
Odds: 2.13

Eibar vs Rayo Vallecano

Eibar vs. Rayo Vallecano / La Liga – The first match in La Liga after a break caused by obligations of the Spanish national team is a the duel between a team that are positioned in the lower part of the table and are very close to the relegation zone and a team that are positioned in a quiet middle of the table. The hosts are those who are endangered due to a long lasting series without a victory, while the guests have no such worries having seven points more and being in a much better shape. Eibar is really under a lot of pressure and they must win, unlike Rayo Vallecano who can play its favourite game without much tactics. In the first part of the season Eibar had surprised at the Vallecas and won by 3-2, while out of their four La Liga matches each team won twice. Begins: 03.04.2015 – 20:45 CET
Eibar

Little by little Eibar is getting closer to the position that was predicted for them at the beginning of season. In the first part of the season this team was a real hit and was firmly positioned in the upper part of the table, while at the beginning of the second part of the season they won two victories. Then began their decline and this team didn’t win since the beginning of January. They have played exactly ten matches in this period and only two were not defeats, while those two were draws. The negative series has begun with a draw and they drew in the last round with Granada away, which is a very good result considering that the opponent were a team who are positioned in the relegation zone.

They were mostly in a subordinate position but they managed to preserve the initial 0-0 till the end of match. However, draws will not leave them in La Liga and instead they have to start winning. This seems like a pretty good chance but they will not be complete because stopper Raul Navas and midfielder del Moral are injured. On the other hand Ekiza is back in the team after expiration of the suspension and he will surely cover the stopper position, while Piovaccari goes in the attack.

Probable lineups Eibar: J. Jimenez – Boveda, Ekiza, Anibarro, L. Castellano – Dani Garcia, Borja – Lara, Saul, Arruabarrena – Piovaccari
Rayo Vallecano

Rayo Vallecano is worry-free in the middle of the table although they cannot simply completely relax since the relegation zone is not too far, just ten points below. This of course doesn’t mean that Rayo should start playing tactics because this team don’t play like that for a long time and in fact play quite openly in every match to win. They still have only two draws from the first two rounds, which means that they didn’t draw for 26 rounds and it is the best indicator of their play style. With such game they tend to receive a lot of goals and average more than two per game when play away.

They are currently in a quite good shape and have won four times in the last six rounds and they lost the two remaining matches to Athletic and Barcelona away, ??where objectively couldn’t do much. It should be said that all four victories were won at home and that they didn’t win away for a long time. Coach Jemez has a lot of problems with the team because stopper Amaya and midfielder Trashorras cannot play because of yellow cards, while attackers Baptistao and Miku are injured, but the good news is that stopper Abdoulaye is back in the team.

Probable lineups Rayo Vallecano: C. Alvarez – Tito, Abdoulaye, Ze Castro, Nacho – Raul Baena, J. Sanchez – Kakuta, Bueno, Lica – Manucho
Eibar – Rayo Vallecano PICK

This match is very important for Eibar and they really must try to win, while Rayo Vallecano will certainly not just defend their goal, simply because it is not their style and on top of it they are completely worry-free. Therefore, contrary to many expectations, we forecast here a match with plenty of goals.

Pick: over 2.5 goals

Stake: 5/10

Odds: 2.15

England vs Lithuania

England vs. Lithuania / Qualifiers for EURO – After a few friendly, finally we have a few qualifying matches for EURO 2016, and we will start the analyse of the fifth round with one quite unequal duel in Group E, because the currently leading England meets the third Lithuania at London’s Wembley, which already at this stage of the competition has a large six points behind “Gordon Albion”. Let us add that this is their first mutual duel in history. Begins: 27.03.2015 – 20:45 CET
England

But even though they do not know each other enough, it is quite clear that the English have the role of big favourite in this match, especially while since they are in a series of six wins. Namely, coach Hodgson has after the debacle at last year’s World Cup further rejuvenated his team, which immediately led to a lot more aggressive and faster game, and then ultimately to better results. Thus, after the victory in the friendly match against Norway, they also celebrated as guests in Switzerland with 2-0 in the opening of qualifications, but then they achieved a maximum impact at home against San Marino and Slovenia, and on the side in Estonia.

Meanwhile they celebrated in the friendly match against Scotland, on their Celtic Park, which has only helped their self-confidence before the continuation of qualifications. Let us add that goalkeepers Forster and Foster, defender Shaw, midfielders Lallana, Wilshere and Oxlade-Chamberlain and strikes Sturridge and Rodriguez will all have to miss this duel with Lithuania because of injuries, while defender Chambers, midfielder Downing and strikers Lambert and Berahino were not even called to participate due to their poor form.

Probable lineups England: Hart – Clyne, Jones, Cahill, Gibbs – Henderson, Carrick, Milner – Sterling – Rooney, Welbeck
Lithuania

As for the team of Lithuania, they have used their favorable schedule in the first two qualifying rounds and celebrated with 2-0 in the away match against outsiders from San Marino, and after that in the neighboring derby against Estonia they also reached a domestic triumph of 1-0. However, already against their first serious opponent Slovenia they showed that they are still limited team, so they were defeated at home with 2-0 in the third round, while in the next match in Switzerland they suffered a defeat of even 4-0.

In this way the Lithuanians have already fallen to fourth place in the standings, but they still have the same number of points as the second Slovenia and third Switzerland. We should also add that they late last year did a good job in the friendly match against much better team of Ukraine, because as guests in Kiev they managed to play 0-0. However, now they themselves are aware that they will have a pretty tough job against the leading England and therefore coach Pankratkjevas has announced a distinctly defensive setup, however what certainly creates additional problems are the absences of the injured strikers Spalvis, Novikovas and Matulevicius and midfielder Zulpa.

Probable lineups Lithuania: Arlauskis – Freidgeimas, Kijanskas, Zaliukas, Andriuskevicius – Mikoliunas, Panka, Vicius, Vaitkunas – Kalonas – Cernych
England vs. Lithuania PICK

Of course that the English are big favourites in this game, especially since they are playing at home, but also the team of Lithuania has already in the last friendly match with Ukraine showed some progress and therefore we feel that they will not experience a disaster now at Wembley as they did in the previous qualifying match against Switzerland.

Pick: Asian Handicap +2.5 Lithuania

Stake: 5/10

Odds: 1.6

Isner – Anderson

Home favorite John Isner takes on South African Kevin Anderson in the third round at Indian Wells. Both guys had a bye in the first round and won their second round matches in straight sets.


Isner defeated Melzer 6-3 6-4 for a much needed breath of fresh air after having an awful season, highlighted by blowing USA’s Davis Cup tie against Great Britain last week by losing to James Ward. John`s form is really bad for some time now and it seems he can`t catch a break. He did play well against Melzer (especially on serve, 0 break points allowed) but not anything special, after all Melzer is more like old-boys material right now – even if I did expect Jurgen to cause Isner more problems due to the matchup between them. All in all, the American could gain some confidence from that win and also from the fact that Indian Wells is one of his favorite tournaments.

Kevin Anderson is playing the best tennis of his life right now, he`s having a really good year with a R16 showing at the Australian Open, final in Memphis and two other semifinals – after having a solid 2014 as well. He had a rather straightforward win in the second round against Delbonis, 7-5 6-4, holding serve for the entire match.


Isner leads the Head 2 Head 7-3 (7-4 if we take into account a semi-official match in Hopman Cup) and won the last 4 meetings. On hard the score is 6-4. The Head 2 Head would suggestst a matchup advantage for John, but I doubt that is the case. Both are big servers, and the Head 2 Head is more due to the fact that Isner is simply a slightly better player when in form, while Anderson started playing at a top level no earlier than.

The odds on Anderson are going up because of the Head 2 Head and I`m really tempted to bet on Kevin, but I will stick with a tip on a first set tiebreak. In the direct meetings so far there were 5 first set tiebreaks in 11 matches and the two played a total of 14 tiebreaks in 25 sets, which is a percentage of over 55%. Obviously both are big servers and not so good returners, especially Isner. There`s also the fact that each player held serve with authority in the previous round, not allowing any breaks, so that will give Isner and Anderson big confidence on serve early in the match.

I do think that Anderson should be the favorite, but all in all it looks like a relatively evenly matched clash and my tip will be a first set tiebreak to occur. Prediction: John Isner – Kevin Anderson 7-6 5-7 6-7.


Pick: First set tiebreak – Yes
Odds: 2.10

R. Bautista-Agut vs D. Thie

Bautista-Agut vs. Thiem / ATP Marseille – The first quarter-finals pair at the tournament in Marseille are Spaniard R. Bautista-Agut and Austrian D. Thiem. Bautista-Agut qualified for the quarter-finals after he defeated V. Pospisil by 2-0, while Thiem had an easier path toward the quarter-finals after D. Goffin surrendered the match in the first set at the score 5-1 in games. Begins: 20.02.2015 – 12:00 CET

R. Bautista-Agut
Agut is 16th ranked tennis player at the ATP list and he won two titles in his career, both last season at tournaments in s-Hertogenbosch and Stuttgart, where he defeated Becker and Rosola in finals. He started the season in Chennai, where he reached the semi-finals and lost to Bedene by 2-1, while in Auckland, at the Australian Open and in Rotterdam he couldn’t go further from second rounds when he lost to Mannarino, Muller and Monfils, respectivelly. He made one of the better results last season in Madrid where he reached the semi-finals in which he lost to Nadal. The second good result was the fourth round at the US Open whe he lost to Federer.

Regarding the match of the previous round in which Agut defeated Pospisil by 7-6, 6-4 in sets, it is important to say that the Canadian had expectedly served better, having 8 aces and 68% of successful first service, and 80% of points won after the first service. However, what made the decisive difference and brought victory to the Spaniard was number of points won after the second serve. Pospisil won only 6 of 21 points at his second serve, while Agut’s ratio was 19 out of 28.

D. Thiem
Thiem has made a significant progress in the ATP rankings previous year so he occupied 36th place in the middle of last season, which was also the best rating in his career. Somewhat weaker results that he made at the end of last year and beginning of this one downgraded him at his current 48th place, where this quarter-final is his best result this season. He had played in Auckland and at the Australian Open, where he couldn’t go further from first rounds, and was bit more successful in Rotterdam, where he lost a match of the second round to Stakhovsky.

The Austrian reached these quarter-finals quite easily because favoured Goffin has surrendered the match before the end of the first set. However, we must say that Thiem had up to that point an advantage of 5-1, but he had incredibly weak percentage of the first service of only 15%, i.e. just two won points. In contrast, the second service was at 91% or 10 out of 11.

R. Bautista-Agut – D. Thiem PICK
The only match so far between these two players had taken place this season at the Australian Open, and the Spaniard won it by 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 7-6 in sets. We will not list all statistics details from that match but we will say that the Spaniard had an advantage of 4% to 5%, which is completely in line with the final result. Young Austrian depends too much on the first serve, while Agut is simply more complete player and this is his main advantage, so we expect that he qualify for the semi-finals.

Pick: Bautista-Aguta wins

Stake: 5/10

Odds: 1.61

Deportivo vs Eibar

Deportivo vs. Eibar / La Liga – Match between two new La Liga teams opens this round. Only one of them expectedly fight to survive and that is the host, Deportivo, despite have two times more expensive team than Eibar, who has the smallest budget in the league but occupies an excellent eighth place. Six points separate them but this match can easily change that. Deportivo’s morale is high after the away victory in the last round and second match in a row that they didn’t lose, while Eibar didn’t win in the last three matches and it seems like they are in a small crisis. It is interesting that Deportivo had defeated Eibar in the first part of the season by 1-0, which was their only away victory until the last round, while last season in the Segunda a match between these two teams played in La Coruna ended as a draw, 1-1. Begins: 06.02.2015 – 20:45 CET

Deportivo
Deportivo plays considerably better in the second half of the season and that is why this team slowly but surely move away from the relegation zone and now have three points more than teams in it, and this match is a good opportunity to win new points. Deportivo lost only once is in five matches of the season continuation, by Barcelona at home, which was of course fully expected. They drew with Levante and Granada, direct competitors in the battle for survival, and had defeated stronger teams; Athletic at home and in the last round Rayo Vallecano away, when they demonstrated a very good game and the victory should have been higher than the final 2-1.

It has been proved that bringing of midfielder Borges during the winter break was the right move, because right this player had sank Rayo Vallecano with two goals, while recovered Lucas plays great. It seems that coach Fernandez has found the winning combination when it comes to the team, although there’s always a problem. Stopper Sydney is questionable and will probably be replaced by Insua, midfielder Rodriguez cannot play because of yellow cards so J. Dominguez will return in the team, while Farina and striker Helder Postiga are still out of action.

Probable lineups Deportivo: Fabri – Juanfran, Insua, Lopo, Luisinho – Alex, J. Dominguez – Borges, Lucas, Cavaleiro – Oriol Riera

Eibar
It can be said that Eibar is easing a bit lately, at least when it comes to the results. This team didn’t lose in the last three rounds but we must be aware against whom they played. Visiting draw with Cordoba, who is very good in the second part of the season, is not a bad result, and after that they were minimally defeated away by much stronger Real Sociedad, 1-0. In the last round they lost at home but to reigning champion Atletico, playing at a very difficult terrain, which didn’t suit them at all, although it was supposed to be their advantage.

Obviously, they started the match with too much respect and by the middle of the first half they were trailing behind for 3-0. In addition to being defeated this match cost them a lot in terms of availability of some players who will not be able to play this away match at Riazor. Excellent midfielder del Moral was injured and he is out of action, which is quite a handicap, while right and left winger, Lillo and Abraham are suspended because of yellow cards. This means at least three changes in the starting line-up which will surely be felt during the match.

Probable lineups Eibar: Irureta – Boveda, Anibarro, Raul Navas, Didac Vila – Errasti, Dani Garcia – Capa, Arruabarrena, Saul – Piovaccari

Deportivo – Eibar PICK
Everyone predict a tough match with few goals but it doesn’t have to be like that. Deportivo is currently very good and they scored four goals in the last two matches. Eibar’s efficiency is a bit squeaky, although this is true only for tough matches, so here we could see at least two goals.

Pick: over 2 goals

Stake: 6/10

Odds: 1.95

FC Augsburg vs 1899 Hoffenhei

FC Augsburg vs. 1899 Hoffenheim / Bundesliga – If we exclude the big derby that was played on Friday this is the most interesting match of the round, as these teams are direct competitors for places that lead to Europe. Currently are neighbours in the standings, Augsburg is sixth and that position leads into the Europa League, while Hoffenheim is one position below and has one point less. Common for both of them is that they are much more solid when playing at home, while as visitors they have the same of scored and conceded goals. Defeat followed by victory are the results that both teams made in the finish of the first part of the season.  Hoffenheim won their match played at the beginning of the season by 2-0 but have lost the last two away matches against Augsburg. Begins: 01.02.2015 – 17:30 CET

FC Augsburg
Augsburg was very good in the first part of the season i.e. their matches can be divided into two groups; good one to which belong matches mostly played at home and a bad one in which go matches played away. There’s no middle ground, as this team didn’t draw even once in the first part of the season, which is very interesting for the team that is in fact average and was expected to frequently draw. Victories and defeats are almost evenly distributed, with one victory more and one more scored goal. Special story is the home pitch and six victories, with two defeats by Bayern and Borussia Dortmund.

The rest of visitors were defeated pretty easily, including Borussia M’gladbach at the end of the first part of the season. They made a turnover in that match and stayed in competition for European positions, which now wants to solidify. During the break brought they have brought two valuable reinforcements, midfielders Hojbjerg from Bayern, while striker Ji Dong has returned from Dortmund. Philp and de Jong have left the team, although they were not standard first team players so it can be said that are even stronger. They have problem with absences because of various reasons and goalie Hitz, Baba, Hong, Moravek, Matavz and Molders will not play in this match.

Probable lineups FC Augsburg: Manninger – Verhaegh, Callsen-Bracker, Klavan, Feulner – Baier – Esswein, Hojbjerg, Halil Altintop, To. Werner – Bobadilla

1899 Hoffenheim
Hoffenheim was very good too in the first part of the season, especially at the very beginning, when this team was long undefeated. However, before the break they lost five times but the overall impression is good and the seventh place demonstrates it the best, while they have just three points less than the third-placed team. They had concluded the first part of the season with a brilliant away victory over Hertha in Berlin by 5-0, although it was only the second away win, where they were not very successful. They again play efficient matches, although it was not like that at the beginning.

During the winter break stopper Vestergaard left the team and didn’t bring any new reinforcements, which was logical, because they have anyway a pretty good team. Currently are not much weakened, Kim is absent being at the Asian Cup with the national team of South Korea, while defender Sule is injured. Coach Gisdol has doubts about the position of the left back, where two players are possible Salihovic or Toljan, while it is unclear whether Szalai will be in the attack or somewhat faster Schipplock.

Probable lineups 1899 Hoffenheim: Baumann – Beck, Strobl, Bicakvic, Salihoviv (Toljan) – Polanski, Schwegler – Volland, Roberto Firmino, Elyounoussi – Szalai (Schipplock)

FC Augsburg – 1899 Hoffenheim PICK
If we said that both teams are much more successful as hosts then there is no reason to believe that Augsburg is not a slight favourite here. Indeed, they were good at home and will hardly lose now but it is possible that Hoffenheim pulls a draw.

Pick: Asian handicap 0 Augsburg

Stake: 6/10

Odds: 1.78