Chelsea welcome La Liga leaders Atletico Madrid to Stamford Bridge on Wednesday night for the second leg of their Champions League semi-final fresh off of an epic away win at Premiership leaders Liverpool in a match in which manager Jose Mourinho rested key players ahead of what he considered to be the more important match against Atletico.
During the first-leg match at the Vincente Calderon that finished 0-0 Chelsea did what we have seen them do in most of their Champions League away games, and that is to play a very tight six man defence while looking to score on the break, the same exact tactics they used against Liverpool at Anfield.
You have to feel that given the weekends results the Blues will be looking to employ the same tactics against the Spaniards with Petr Cech and John Terry unavailable through injury with Eden Hazard and Samuel Eto’o both questionable.
Two other players that will defiantly be missing are Frank Lampard and John Obi Mikel who are both suspended after having been shown yellow cards in the first-leg.
Atletico Madrid meanwhile have not lost a game since February and have been in good form, but unlike Chelsea Diego Simone felt as though he could not afford to rest players against Valencia on Sunday which meant that nine of the players that took part in the first leg also played against their La Liga rivals.
Atletico certainly has the capability of beating Chelsea, but given the Blues style of play and the tactics used by manager Jose Mourinho you have the feeling that Atletico have already over achieved this season by topping Barcelona and Real Madrid domestically and that to make it to the final of the Champions League may just be one hurdle too many.
A draw is the stand out bet in this encounter with anything but a 0-0 result seeing the Spanish side in the final, and despite Chelsea being the favourites with Bet365 offering 13/10 we think that a 1-1 result is too tempting to resist at odds of 23/10.
To see a full list of all the top bookmakers’ odds for this and all other football games visit completebetting.com where you will find all the information you need to make the right selection.
During the first –leg in Spain Chelsea parked the bus, but now back in London they know that they must score at least two goals in order to feel safe which means they cannot afford to sit back and soak up pressure with anything less than a two goal lead.
If you think that Diego Costa and Atletico have got what it takes to beat Chelsea at home you can get odds of 5/1 for los Colchoneros to come away with a win at Betfred.
