Bookies can barely split four teams after the first round of quarter-final fixtures.
Following the first round of fixtures in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, bookies and punters have been left scratching their heads as to the likely winner of this year’s competition.
Hotly tipped to be the ones to beat this year, both Manchester City and Barcelona were unconvincing. City’s loss to Spurs came as a shock, while Barca stumbled to a 1-0 win at Old Trafford.
Barcelona are narrow favourites with a number of bookmakers, with 3/1 the best price on offer for the Catalan giants to lift the trophy on 1st June.
The market becomes decidedly murky beyond that point, with Liverpool, Man City and Juventus all floating around the 7/2 mark.
Liverpool were perhaps the most convincing winners of their first leg tie, cruising to a 2-0 win against Porto at Anfield, but sit joint second favourites at 7/2. Having demolished the Portuguese side 5-0 at their place last season, punters will be confident the Reds will progress to the semi-finals.
Man City will have to overturn a one goal deficit against Spurs, but several bookies still make Pep Guardiola’s side joint second-favourites at 7/2 to win the competition.
Juventus are priced at 4/1, held to a 1-1 draw with Ajax but picking up a valuable away goal courtesy of Cristiano Ronaldo. The latter are massive outsiders at 33/1.
Meanwhile, despite their 1-0 victory against Man City, Spurs are priced at 14/1. The other trailing sides Man Utd (35/1) and Porto (300/1) make up the rest of the market.
It’s very even with punters too, with attractively priced Spurs (20%) and Ajax (17%) narrowly leading the betting in the last 24 hours.
Oddschecker spokesperson George Elek: “Last season the first leg score-lines at this stage looked pretty decisive, but with Roma overturning a three goal deficit against Barcelona in the second leg and Juventus almost doing the same against Real Madrid, you can’t read much into these results.
“We certainly haven’t had many clues after this round of fixtures and it could be a time for punters to pick up the bigger prices, the 14/1 about Spurs and 33/1 for Ajax are tempting plenty in.”
