FC Porto vs Rangers Predictions

Porto play host to Rangers at Estádio do Dragão on Thursday evening, as they look for their second win in Group G. The visitors will also be looking for a second win in the competition.

When they beat Young Boys at home on match-day one, it looked as though Porto, who’re more accustomed to playing the Champions League, would take control of Group G, though their dominance wasn’t confirmed last time out. Instead, the group was blown wide open after they were beaten by Feyenoord.

However, despite losing in Rotterdam, the Portuguese giants played well, so much so that not only did they deserve to avoid defeat but probably deserved to win, or at least that’s what an expected goal difference of +1.24 suggests. Frankly, if they repeat such creative antics, which saw them post an impressive 2.72 expected goals for, on Thursday, then they’ll likely regain the winning thread.

Rangers have also won one and lost one in Group G, as they beat Feyenoord in Glasgow on match-day one and lost away against Young Boys last time out.

When beating Feyenoord at home, Steven Gerrard’s men impressed; they looked a threat both when dictating and when playing on the break, while they created far more than their Dutch counterparts, emerging with a pleasing expected goal difference of +1.63.

Unfortunately, Rangers were poor when playing in Switzerland on match-day two. On that occasion, the Scottish side struggled to create clear-cut scoring opportunities, as they posted a rather subdued 0.72 expected goals for. They also looked rather easy to get at, shipping two goals and 2.1 expected goals against. Such figures don’t exactly bode well ahead of Thursday’s trip to the historic city of Porto.

Given Rangers rather poor effort in Bern and Porto’s pleasing home effort on match-day one, the hosts look the likely winners, though the early market is all too aware of that, meaning that a bet on the home win simply represents no value.

One bet that does stand out as viable is ‘Both Teams to Score’. Porto have done enough offensively to suggest that they’ll notch at least once against a Rangers back-line that was weak against Young Boys, though for all Gerrard’s side weren’t at their best going forward on the road last time out, they still scored, while the hosts haven’t exactly covered themselves in defensive glory, conceding in each of their first two, shipping expected goals figures of 1.13 and 1.48.