OK a disappointing performance on the Spanish football took a bit of the shine of a pretty successful weekend where we pushed our profits to +38.22pts. Champions League tonight! In the second leg of these ties the home team have averaged roughly a 60% strike rate over the last 5 years. The split between draws and away wins is a little less certain with R16 games having a 18:22 split but overall having a 23:17 split. It seems as if away wins get less and less likely as the tournament progresses (no away team has won a semi final second leg since the CL adopted this format). However I am not confident there is really enough data so suggest that this is statisically significant and so I am working off the assumption that the H:D:A split is roughly 60:20:20

This being the case:

2.5pts Fiorentina @ 15/8 (bet365): I thought they were under-rated for the first round clash and they continue to be under-rated. They were very unlucky to be beaten the last day and Bayern continue to be judged on their team sheet and not their performances. At home we have to side with the Italians here.

Lay to lose 3 pts Draw @ 4.0 Arsenal v Porto (Betfair): A finely balanced tie but the stats suggest that the draw should be about 5.0 and Porto should be a similar price.

0.5pts Porto @ 6.4 (Betfair): see above

Also as far as I can remember from my spreadsheet last night the bookings make up for these games averages about 51.5pts. I also seem to remember that only 2 games in the last 2 years made up at less than 40. This would suggest that totals are clustered around the 40-60 mark with a coouple of outliers so....

2pts 4-6 cards in each game. Both at 19/20 (Will Hill)