THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE continues on Tuesday night. Here Ben Levene (@BenLevene96) picks out his favourite fancy from Manchester United's clash with Benfica.
Manchester United v Benfica | Tuesday 31st October 2017, 19:45 | BT Sport
Manchester United have won all seven of their home games this season, with six of those coming ‘to nil’. The time they failed to keep a clean sheet was in a 4-1 win over Burton who grabbed a stoppage-time consolation goal.
Jose Mourinho sides are always organised and deal with the task at hand. They only goal they’ve conceded in Europe this year came in the 90th minute in Moscow when 4-0 up against CSKA.
Having beaten Spurs at the weekend, Mourinho will have an eye on Sunday’s trip to Chelsea, which he won’t want to lose. So we can expect his squad to come into play this Tuesday.
Depleted Benfica
Despite this, United will be difficult to break down and will fancy themselves to find the net against a depleted Benfica defence who have kept just one clean sheet in six on their travels.
Skipper Luisao is suspended while right-backs Andrea Almeida and Douglas are both unavailable, as is centre-back Jardel. Results may have picked up for Benfica in recent weeks but they still aren’t performing with much conviction.
They’ve scored just the single goal in the Champions League while in the Primeira Liga, Jonas has scored 12 of their 20 goals, which amounts to 60% of their goals and shows they lack a variety of goal threats.
The betting angle
Benfica have only scored more than the single goal in one of their last 10 matches and two of their last 14 on their travels so back united to seal another win ‘to nil’ at 11/10 (BetVictor).
Referee Jonas Eriksson has handed out four or more cards in five of the last six European fixtures he’s officiated, so watch out for cards.
Best Bets
Manchester Untied v Benfica – Manchester United to win ‘to nil’ (11/10 BetVictor)
