Champions League Betting – Arsenal vs. Monaco
By Zack Garrison in News
Updated: January 17, 2018 at 9:40 am ESTPublished:
Arsenal (-200) vs. Monaco (+700) (Draw +320)
Arsenal and Monaco will meet for the first time in the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 today. The kick-off will is at 2:45 p.m. Eastern at Arsenal Stadium.
The Gunners are favored to win this first leg of the two-game series, listed at -200 in the moneyline and -1 in the handicap; Monaco is +700 and the draw +320.
In the odds to score the first goal, the Arsenal’s Chilean striker, Alexis Sánchez, is the favorite at +350, followed by his teammates Oliver Giroud and Danny Welbeck (both +375).
Arsenal finished second in Group G during the Group Stage (4-1-1, 13 points); they tied Borussia Dortmund on points, but had a worse goal difference (+7 vs. +10). The team also won three games by two or more goals during the round robin.
Monaco, meanwhile, triumphed in Group C thanks to an extremely stingy defense. They were 3-2-1 with just four goals for and one goal against.
The leg will have special meaning for Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, who coached Monaco for seven years (1987–94) before leaving for Nagoya Grampus in Japan. This will be the first time the ex-manager has his old club.
“When I arrived there … Monaco had never passed the first round of the European Cup. We went to the final of the European Cup Winners’ Cup and the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League. These are big memories – previously it was a club who barely existed in Europe.”
Astoundingly, this will be Arsenal’s 15th consecutive appearance in the last 16. However, the Gunners have lost at this stage in each of the last four seasons.
On the other side, Monaco arrives in London looking for their first quarterfinal since 2003-04. That year, they went all the way to the final but lost against FC Porto (0-3) in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. They made the Round of 16 for the last time in 2004-05, when they were defeated by PSV Eindhoven (3-0).
(Photo credit: Ronnie Macdonald from Chelmsford, United Kingdom (Mesut Özil  Uploaded by Dudek1337) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.)
Sports Writer
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
