SPURS begin another Europa League campaign with a home tie against Qarabag. Easy win? Chris Graham (@chrisgraham79) takes a look at the odds.
Tottenham v Qarabag | Thursday 20:05 | BT Sport Europe
A fifth consecutive Europa League campaign begins here for Spurs – exciting eh?! They face Azerbaijan outfit Qarabag at White Hart Lane and bookies are expecting a comfortable win with best odds of 4/11 available on the North London side.
Tottenham's group stage form in this competition over the last three seasons has been fairly exemplary. 18 matches and just one defeat. Their overall record stands at P18 W11 D6 L1 and at White Hart Lane they have seven wins out of nine with no defeats.
That must be intimidating for Qarabag when they turn up to London but to be fair they have their own record to shout about. The last two seasons have seen them make real progress in Europe and they emerged with real credit from last season's competition.
Yes Qarabag were drawn in the same Europa League group as Inter, eventual runners-up Dnipro and French side Saint-Etienne. Outclassed? Not a bit of it! Gurban Gurbanov's side took points from all three sides and famously beat Dnipro in Ukraine. They lost one fewer game than Dnipro in the group but sadly were eliminated by finishing in third place.
This season they ended up in the Champions League after winning their league title and gave Celtic a really tough game before succumbing 1-0 on aggregate.
From there they were parachuted into the Europa League play-off round. Drawn against Young Boys they were widely written off by bookmakers but threw egg all over their faces by beating the Swiss side home and away and 4-0 on aggregate. Wow!
It's going to be hard for Qarabag on Thursday with Tottenham being a prime Europa League outfit but I'm trying my best to find a way of getting with them. 12/1 you say?
8/5 on Qarabag +1 on the Asians drew my attention but even a gallant one goal defeat wouldn't give me any returns so, reluctantly, it's a bet on Under 2.5 Goals at Evens with Paddy Power. This Qarabag unit have conceded just one goal in six European matches this season while Spurs are rather lacking in the final third.
Best Bets
Spurs v Qarabag – Under 2.5 Goals (1/1 Paddy Power)
3/1 Spurs To Beat Qarabag With Betfair
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