Chelsea looks to finish off the job in the Champions League quarter-finals against Porto on Tuesday heading into the second leg holding a 2-0 lead.
Porto will be desperate for an early goal here, which could lead to a very open first half. Bookmaker 10Bet has the odds at 2.80 for over 1.5 first-half goals in the game.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: April 12th, 8:00 P.M. (EST)
Backing goals in a Chelsea game seemed irrational just a couple of weeks ago, but the Blues have started to find their offensive rhythm under Thomas Tuchel and their defense hasn’t been as solid as it was before.
Chelsea have just played out a 4-1 game with Crystal Palace that featured three goals in the first half an hour, and they also recently suffered the first defeat of the Tuchel era by going down 5-2 against West Bromwich Albion.
The numbers the team posted during the first few weeks with the German in charge – 12 clean sheets in 15 games – were always going to be unsustainable, so it’s no surprise to see Chelsea taking a bit of a step back defensively.
Tuchel has tried to get his side’s attack going by experimenting with various lineups and things finally clicked last weekend when the team scored more than two goals for the first time since he arrived in town on Jan. 26.
Porto are a team full of goals as well – three different players have hit double-figures across all competitions and Colombian winger Luis Diaz is just one short of joining them.
Chelsea managed to nullify the Dragons a week ago, but the first-leg result marks the only game since March in which Porto haven’t scored at least twice.
The team has been in great form results-wise as well losing only four of their last 36 outings in all competitions. They are closing in on Sporting in the Primeira Liga title race and are still high on confidence despite losing the first leg to Chelsea.
“We are confident,” said Porto manager Sergio Conceicao at his pre-match press conference. “We know that we are going to face a difficult obstacle, but we are here to give the answer that we have to give. The feeling of representing this historic club and its DNA is always on the pitch.”
It’s a big mountain to climb for Porto, but nobody expected them to make it this far when they faced Juventus in the last round and Conceicao’s men proved everybody wrong. Now they have a chance to show that their success wasn’t a fluke.
