Partizan Belgrade vs Athletic Bilbao Betting Tips

Not much was really expected of Partizan in a pretty tough group, especially given their abject showing in this competition last year, where they scored just 1 goal in the group phase. It has been much better this time around though and a 3-2 win over AZ in their opener was followed up by a rare European away win at Augsburg last time out to leave them with maximum points and top of the group.

On the same night Athletic Bilbao were going down to defeat in Alkmaar and could really do with an improved performance and result here. They suffered a cruel blow at the weekend by conceding twice late on to see their 2-0 lead at Deportivo turn into a 2-2 draw in La Liga.

It meant that away from Bilbao, Athletic are yet to win in 8 attempts this season and they failed to get the job done on the road in Eastern Europe against the likes of Inter Baki and Zilina in the qualifying rounds and they may find this tough again against a confident Partizan side.

The Serbs have only lost 1 of their last 7 home games in Europe and although their league form has been patchy they might just be able to again raise their game for the visit of more illustrious opponents.

The bookies have made Athletic pretty clear favourites which is a little surprising given all that so consider backing Partizan to at least get a point from the match at odds of 8/11.

This is the sort of game where both sides might just be content with a draw. Partizan would move onto 7 points and would probably only need one more win to qualify while Athletic would move to 4 and would fancy their chances of securing victories in their final 2 home games to move them to 10, which tends to be considered the magic figure in the group stages of European competition.

Therefore a close, fairly low-scoring game could be in prospect and it might be worth backing a 1-1 draw at 5/1.