Champions League Betting – Gunners Aim for Upset of Barca

FC Barcelona (-145) at Arsenal (+400), Draw (+260)

Arsenal will try to do the seemingly impossible tomorrow. The Gunners will square off with Lio Messi and Barcelona in the UCL Round of 16, looking to oust the defending champs from the tournament. Arsenal will host the first leg of the series at the Emirates (2:45 PM Eastern) before travelling to Spain for the second leg on March 16.

The Gunners are in the hunt for the English Premier League title, but they have struggled with consistency all season; they just squeaked into the knockout stage of the UCL (tying Olympiakos for second in Group F with nine points in six games) and, more recently, couldn’t get by Hull City at home in the FA Cup, drawing 0-0.

All that notwithstanding, manager Arsene Wenger isn’t downplaying his expectations for the team against the Spanish giants.

“It’s our best chance … We have to take it and have a go at them. I believe in these big games, in the first tie at home, we can’t be stupid,” Wegner told the BBC.

Handing Barca a loss has proved exceedingly difficult this year – no matter the venue. The Catalans haven’t suffered a setback in over 30 games (all competitions); their last defeat was against Sevilla all the way back in October.  They stretched their lead atop La Liga on the weekend by beating Las Palmas, 3-1, on the road. They’re now eight points clear of second-place Atletico Madrid and nine up on Real Madrid.

“Today [Saturday] we played a more effective game than usual,” Luis Enrique said about his win against Las Palmas to the Spanish press. “At this rhythm, playing every two or three days, we can only keep going.”

Messi and Neymar get most of the headlines for Barcelona, but Wenger sees Suarez as the team’s real catalyst.

“Suárez is the kind of guy who manages to create that spirit in teams. Apart from the individual talent [Suarez, Messi, and Neymar] have, they have a great solidarity. When you see someone like Messi, who could score his 300th goal, give the ball to Suárez when he had the opportunity to score that means there’s really something in there,” Wenger said of the three strikers.

Barcelona and Arsenal haven’t met since 2011, but Barcelona have won five of the last seven head-to-head and have knocked Arsenal out of the UCL on three occasions, once in the UCL final (2006).

To beat Barcelona, Arsenal not only will need to play a perfect game, but they’ll need to be more defensive-minded than usual. All in all, it seems like too much to ask for a squad that wasn’t able to beat Hull at home this past weekend.

Pick: Barcelona (-145). 

(Photo credit: Ronnie Macdonald [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.)