Europa League Best Bets (First Leg, Quarterfinals)

Lyon vs. Manchester United

Thursday, April 10th at 12:45pm ET

Manchester United may have been able to keep Manchester City at bay over the weekend, but they showed no signs of improvement offensively. In the end United was only able to crate 0.91 expected goals on 13 shots and a lot of their shots came from outside the box.

The problems with Manchester United is not getting solved anytime soon and it’s going to take an influx of players that fit Amorim’s system.

To beat Lyon and to truly exploit them you have to hit them quickly in transition. That is not something United has been great at this season.

Under Amorim they are much more interested in control and building out of the back rather than what United was under Erik Ten Hag when they were just playing transition football.

That is why you tend to see them struggling to actually create high quality chances. It’s not that they horrible at getting through the first two phases of build up it’s the fact that the final third end product is not there.

Under Amorim, Manchester United is only averaging 1.28 non-penalty expected goals, which is actually in the bottom half of the Premier League during that time frame.

Lyon has been on fire over the past two months. Since February 9th, they have a +7.4 expected goal differential and it’s because of how effective they are in transition. Fonseca is still serving his touchline ban, but given how open his teams play and the talent that Lyon has going forward, it would not be shocking for them to completely overwhelm Manchester United on the break.

I think Lyon is a tad undervalued here at home, so I like the value on them Draw no Bet at -112, which is available at Bet365.

Pick: Lyon Draw no Bet (-112)

Tottenham vs. Frankfurt

Thursday, April 10th at 3pm ET

This should be a really fun match.

Things aren’t really working for Tottenham right now and the main problem is their transition defense. Because they are so aggressive in possession when they lose the ball, teams are able to break on them with numbers and Spurs players constantly having to full on sprint time after time to try and stop it.

Adam Clery of ACFC does a nice breakdown here.

That is why since January 1st that Tottenham is allowing the sixth most expected goals in the Premier League. The other problem is when you build up in a 2-3-5 you leave acres of space out wide for teams to attack you, which is another reason why Tottenham is near the bottom of the Premier League in defending crosses.

Frankfurt obviously lost their main goal scoring threat in Omar Marmoush in January, but the number of chances created in their matches really hasn’t dropped off.

In the 11 Bundesliga matches they’ve played without him, their matches are still averaging 3.63 xG per 90 minutes. That is mainly because they are one of the worst pressing teams in the Bundesliga and constantly get exposed, but also because they already had a striker that might have been better than Marmoush.

Hugo Ekitike actually is leading the Bundesliga right now in xG per 90 minutes over the likes of Harry Kane, which is wild to think about considering that Kane has already bagged 23 goals in 26 Bundesliga matches.

There were over six expected goals created over the two legs Frankfurt played against Ajax in the Round of 16 and I think we will see even more here over two matches against Tottenham.

I like the value on Over 3 goals at -105, which is available at Bet365.

Pick: Over 3 goals (-105)