Thursday evening, at 20:00, Chelsea receives Dinamo Kiev’s visit in the first hand of UEFA Europa League finals. The Ukrainians lost half of the 28 games played against the teams in England and have not yet landed on British ground. The hosts know that victory is absolutely necessary on the way to the quarter-finals.
Chelsea has had a great lead so far and starts with the first chance, although Maurizio Sarri will line up more reserves in the game on Stamford Bridge. With Olivier Giroud, after scoring in the last 5 games of the Europa League, the Londoners will have an initiative in front of an opponent who will try to play defensive and block the spaces to Boyko’s gate. On the other hand, Dinamo lost only once in the last 10 games in the Europa League and the band in Ukraine showed their “tilts” in the previous round, against Olympiakos.
Dinamo Kiev has lucked a draw in Greece, scoring 2-2, but then subdued his opponent tactically and obtained a non-emotional qualification after 1-0 on his own. In fact, Dinamo has pleasant memories of the duels with the English teams in the home matches. The blue-and-white band has eliminated rivals in England each and every time they met with them in the elimination phase of the UEL for the past decade: against Manchester City and Everton. Both qualifiers came after home winning and failures in the away game!
Statistics would guide us towards goal bets, given that in 4 of the last 5 European games of Dinamo Kiev have scored at least three goals, but we may witness a balanced tactical duel. In the last 5 matches played on Stamford Bridge on the field, the host team failed to score in the second half, while 10 of the last 13 goals scored by Chelsea in front of their fans were scored after the break! With almost complete batches, the two managers will do their best to avoid a gap on Thursday evening. At the hosts who passed Malmo to “16”, Eden Hazard could sit on the bench at the start of the game.
THE PROBABLE TEAMS
Chelsea: Caballero, Azpilicueta, Luiz, Christensen, Emerson, Kovacic, Kante, Barkley, Pedro, Giroud, Willian
Dinamo Kiev: Boyko – Kedziora, Burda, Shabanov, Mikolenko – Shepelev, Buyalskyi – Tsyganov, Shaparenko, Verbic – Sol Ortiz
PREDICTION: Over 2,5 goals @ 1,70
