Game Between Valencia And Chelsea Expected To Be Very Tight
Chelsea travel to Spain on Wednesday night to take on Valencia, Chelsea are the favourites to win despite Valencia having had a little more success than Chelsea in the last decade in this competition, Valencia reached the final of the Champions League in both 2000 and 2001 whilst Chelsea were beaten finalists in 2008. This is the last competition on Roman Abramovich's 'to do' list and he has spent a lot of money in the past eighteen months in his pursuit of the Champions League so anything other than success is unlikely to be tolerated this season.
Juan Mata faces a quick return to the Mestalla Stadium having joined Chelsea from Valencia during the summer, he will be looking to impress as will Fernando Torres who is about to start a domestic suspension, the Spaniard will be expecting to keep his place when he returns. Daniel Sturridge is a doubt for this match with a knee injury whilst Michael Essien remains a long term absentee, also with a knee injury.
Valencia have made a bright start to the season and were able to hold Barcelona 2-2 at home recently in a game Valencia probably should have won. They did lost at Sevilla at the weekend though and it is interesting to note that three of Valencia's last five games finished 1-0 and one of them was 0-0. This suggests that this could be a low scoring tie and rather than backing the result in a game that could go either way it should be a safer bet to go for under 2.5 goals.