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Valencia vs Celtic Predictions

  • 17:55
  • Expired
  • Estadio de Mestalla
Valencia
    Celtic
      • BT Sport 1

      odds when tipped

      odds when tipped

      Valencia vs Celtic Predictions

      Celtic may be top dogs in Scotland, but they came up short when faced with opposition of a better class last week. Despite having a home crowd behind them, the Bhoys were unable to make much offensive headway against a well-organised Valencia side, while they were unable to resist defensively, as the Spanish side showed their quality in the final third. Having lost 0-2 at home, Celtic now stand little chance of making it through.

      Valencia would’ve left Celtic Park feeling very upbeat about their first-leg efforts. The Spaniards made nullifying their opponents look easy, while without ever really trying to go too mad offensively, they made light work of fashioning a couple of good scoring opportunities. They made getting the ball in the net look easy too.

      As they come into this home match with a 2-0 aggregate lead, things look very rosy for the Bats, while they’re recent home performances should allow them to feel ultra-confident. In La Liga, Valencia are now unbeaten in seven at Mestalla. They’ve only won three of those seven, but they’ve delivered a string of promising performances, especially from a defensive point of view. During their unbeaten run, Marcelino’s men have conceded just three goals at home, while they’re conceding an average of just 0.62 goals and 0.77 expected goals in front of their own fans this season. Given how little Celtic threatened the Bats’ back-line a week ago, such numbers bode very well for the hosts.

      While Valencia look solid at home, Celtic haven’t exactly thrived on their travels of late. In addition to floundering in the first leg a week ago, Brendan Rodgers’ men struggled to get the better of Kilmarnock at the weekend. They did eventually come out on top thanks to a 90th minute goal, but their overall performance (against a side far weaker than Valencia) doesn’t exactly suggest that they’ll go to Mestalla and get a favourable result.

      Furthermore, Celtic’s away performances during the group stages of this competition didn’t exactly make for pleasant reading. The Bhoys were easily beaten by both Leipzig and Salzburg. On the road against those two opponents, they recorded expected-goals for figures of 0.41 and 0.18, which tells us that they struggled massively to create scoring opportunities, much as they did in the first leg of this tie.

      Given what we’ve seen from this pair in Europe this season and given how the first leg panned out, the bet that stands out is ‘Valencia -1 Asian Handicap’. Celtic were unable to land a glove on the Bats last week, despite having home advantage. Now back on their own patch, Valencia can exert even more control over the Bhoys, who not only looked weak in the first leg of this tie, but who offered little at either end of the pitch in their two away matches against decent sides in the group stages.

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