Best bets for Wednesday's Champions League games

There are two more games in the last 16 of the Champions League on Wednesday (February 22), with the standout fixture taking place in Spain where Sevilla host ailing Premier League champions Leicester.

The night's other match sees Portugal's Porto play host to Italian champions Juventus.

Here, our football betting tipster Andy Schooler runs the rule over both games and offers his best bets and scoreline prediction.

Champions League: Wednesday's best bets:

2pts Sevilla (-1) to beat Leicester

1pt Sevilla (-2) to beat Leicester

Sevilla v Leicester (1945 GMT, BT Sport 2)

A quick summary to start and help set the scene:

hird in the Spanish Primera Division, just three points off leaders Real Madrid. Only Real and Barcelona have scored more goals.

Leicester lie 17th in the Premier League, one point outside the relegation zone. They have not scored a league goal this year.

Essentially, there's a huge gulf in form as these two prepare to meet and while you only have to go back to last season to know that Leicester can pull off big shocks, it really is hard to envisage them producing anything at the intimidating Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium.

Yes, the Foxes did manage to win their group back in the autumn, but even those days seem a long time ago now. The end of the group stage was supposed to herald the start of their Premier League revival but problems have only deepened since and that shows their issues are deep-rooted and not going away.

Whichever part of the team you look at, be it defence, midfield or attack, Leicester look unrecognisable from the side which took everyone's breath away last season but perhaps most worrying given their current predicament is a lack of fight, which boss Claudio Ranieri touched upon after their latest loss - an FA Cup fifth-round defeat at 10-man Millwall on Saturday.

"It is strange because last season we won for this, to be more determined than the opponent and play with more heart than the opponent," he said. "We could also lose but we would fight every match."

Maybe Leicester will be reinvigorated by the Champions League anthem ringing out on Wednesday night, just as they seemed to be back in the autumn, but it is hard to see why that should happen.

Even if they do improve in all areas, they will have faced few sides as good as Sevilla, who have won eight and drawn two of their last 12. It must also be remembered they have European experience by the bucketload having won the Europa League in each of the last three seasons.

Home form has always been a strength and only Juventus (who played 10 men for almost an hour) and Barcelona have won at the Pizjuan this term. Both Real and Atletico Madrid have been beaten and Leicester look likely to go the same way.

They've won just once in their last eight and that victory came after extra time in an FA Cup tie between two much-changed teams, Derby being the nominal opponents.

With Sevilla tending to dominate possession on their own patch - figures have been close to 60 per cent even against Real this season - Leicester will likely need to soak up a lot of pressure and try to play on the break.

They managed to do so very well last season but now neither the defence or attack looks able to pull off such tactics right now and my only concern is how to side with Sevilla.

I'm tempted by a straight bet in the correct score market with 3-0, 4-0 and 5-0 available at 9/1, 18/1 and 45/1 respectively.

My only worry is that Sevilla must make a change to a defence which has kept three consecutive clean sheets, Gabriel Mercado being suspended.

With that in mind, it's to the handicap markets I'm heading.

Odds-against about Sevilla winning by at least two seems perfectly fair - it's easy to envisage this turning into a first-leg rout, a la Bayern v Arsenal last week.

Given that's my thought, I'm also going to have a small play on Sevilla (-2) to smaller stakes too.

Sevilla share the goals round. Luciano Vietto and Wissam Ben Yedder are both in double figures for the season, while recent striking addition Stevan Jovetic is another foil in their forward line. In midfield, Samir Nasri and Pablo Sarabia both get forward with regularity and I simply don't see Leicester being good enough to cover all bases.

Prediction: Sevilla 3-0 Leicester

Opta facts:

• Sevilla have kept more clean sheets than any other side in this season's Champions League (5 in 6 games).
• Sevilla and Leicester only scored seven goals in the group stages, the lowest tally among teams left in this season's competition alongside Atlético Madrid.
• Sevilla have won 10 of their 14 Champions League games (D1 L3) at home and have never failed to score in any of those 14 outings.
• 83% of goals conceded by Leicester in this season's competition came in their final group game (5/6), when they were already guaranteed of top spot.
• Leicester's possession average of 41.6% in the group stages is the lowest of any team to have reached this season's round of 16.
• Samir Nasri has only recorded one goal and one assist in 16 Champions League knockout games.
• Jamie Vardy has had two shots on target in his first 424 minutes in the Champions League - none of them has found the back of the net.

Porto v Juventus (1945 GMT, BT Sport 3)

Long-term followers of our tips may already have interest in this game with Juventus picked out in our ante-post preview of this season's Champions League.

They've done little so far to suggest our faith was wrong and start firm favourites to progress from this tie.

They come into it having won eight and lost one since Italy's winter break. The last six of those games have all been won with just one goal conceded by their famous defence which has long been the backbone of the Italian national side.

Further forward, record signing Gonzalo Higuain has scored 13 goals in his last 13 games.

In short, things look pretty good on the Turin side's front.

However, they go up against another in-form outfit on Wednesday night with Porto unbeaten since September (Leicester were actually the last team to beat them), while they haven't lost since April on home soil. They've also won their last six and 11 of their last 12.

While I'd expect Juve's class to prevail in the tie - it should be remembered they won a group containing Sevilla while Porto needed to beat Leicester's reserves in their final match to qualify second - team news is something of a concern at this stage.

Andrea Barzagli and Giorgio Chiellini, key members of that durable defence, are both doubts for the first leg, although both did train on Tuesday morning. Juve do have good back up, notably in the shape of Mehdi Benatia, but losing both would certainly shake the market up and this could well turn out to be a game you only bet on once the line-ups are known.

With Andre Silva now past 20 goals for club and country this season, Porto have an out-and-out striker capable of finding any chinks in the Juve armour and if the team news isn't great news for the visitors, 6/5 about both teams scoring would look big.

However, this is a game I can steer clear of, particularly at time of writing, with much stronger fancies in the other tie of the night.

Prediction: Porto 1-1 Juventus

Opta facts:

• Porto have lost only one of their 14 Champions League knockout games at home (W7 D6), it was against Manchester United in April 2009 (0-1).
• Porto have also only failed to score once in their last 12 Champions League games at the Dragao, it was against Dynamo Kiev in November 2015 (0-2).
• Porto have kept a clean sheet in each of their last three Champions League games, the longest current run among all 16 teams left in this season's competition.
• Juventus are the only team to have won all three of their Champions League away games this season (8 goals scored, 1 conceded), their best ever run of victories on the road in the competition.
• No team conceded fewer goals than Juventus in this season's group stages (2 in 6 games).
• André Silva has been directly involved in two-thirds of Porto's goals in this season's Champions League (6 out of 9), scoring four and assisting two.
• Gonzalo Higuain has scored only two goals in 20 Champions League knockout games. In the group stages, he's netted 15 goals in 38 games.

Posted at 1530 GMT on 21/02/17.