Back Bayern to sail past Napoli in their Champions League clash on Wednesday
Bayern Munich will all but seal their place in the knockout stages of the Champions League if they see off Italian side Napoli at the Allianz Arena on Wednesday night and, ominously for the visitors, Jupp Heynckes’ men have won nine of their last 10 matches in this competition on home soil.
The side from Naples earned a highly creditable draw at home against Bayern a fortnight ago and, also to their credit, they’ve kept clean sheets five of their last games overall. However, they were turned over by Catania in their Scudetto fixture at the weekend, which was hardly an ideal prep for a game of this magnitude.
Indeed, the Bavarians are sitting pretty at the top of Group A at the time of writing, and though a point adrift of Napoli ahead of Wednesday’s round of games, Manchester City will be many peoples’ idea of the side likely to progress to the next stage of the tournament. Consequently, the pressure is on Walter Mazzarri’s charges.
While Barcelona are obviously the team to beat in Europe, personally I have been as impressed with Die Roten as I have with any other outfit so far this season. Heynckes has breathed new life into the German giants, and there are no apparent chinks in their armour – they are not leaking goals like last term, and in terms of goal-scoring they are simply insatiable at present.
With the exception of the disappointing defeat against Hannover and the draw against Napoli , Bayern have won their last three in all competitions without conceding, scoring a staggering 14 times in the process, and they were truly imperious against Nurnberg at the weekend in a Bundesliga fixture, battering that side 4-0 with the red-hot Mario Gomez netting a brace.
One wonders how devastating Bayern will be when Arjen Robben returns to the fray. However, in the meantime they’ve got more than enough firepower to outpoint most teams in European football, and with 888sport and Blue Square both going 11-10 about the hosts winning to nil, my advice is to lump on!