No Greek tragedy for Chelsea
Early Premier League pacesetters Chelsea turn their attention to the Europa League, a competition which has more than served them well in the past. Thessaloniki is the destination for their Group L opener with Greek cup winners PAOK.
PAOK Salonika
The hosts find themselves at this stage having failed to make the cut for the lucrative Champions League group stage – admirable victories over Basel and Spartak Moscow couldn’t be followed up on as PAOK lost out fairly heavily in the end to Benfica.
Mind you, they’ll be more than grateful for a second bite of the European cherry having gone completely without last season; an agonizing away goals rule defeat to Swedish outfit Östersund at the final play off stage of this competition left Razvan Lucescu’s side with just matters domestically to focus on.
PAOK did manage to make the best out of the situation however, winning the Greek Cup for the second year running, whilst pushing AEK Athens close in the Super League title race. It looks as if they’ll be vying for top spot once again after taking maximum points from their opening three games, though a 2 point deduction - a sanction carried over from last season when you may remember club owner Ivan Savvidis invading a SuperLeague match with a gun in protest against a referee – sees them sit just off top spot.
Talking of weapons, PAOK have last season’s top scorer Aleksander Prijovic in fine form – he hit four in total in the Champions League qualifiers and will be raring to go having been rested in the last league match. Meanwhile, a familiar face in the shape of former Arsenal youth player Chuba Akpom, in the process of trying to resurrect his career away from the spotlight of England, may step off the bench to feature for the home side.
Chelsea
Serial trophy winners Chelsea, play their first Europa League tie since winning the tournament in 2013. Though they’d prefer to be playing on Tuesday and Wednesday nights than Thursdays, The Blues rarely pass up the opportunity to put some silverware in the cabinet and are quite rightly favourites to win the competition outright.
Important to open their European campaign on a positive note
The ability for Maurizio Sarri to name practically an entirely different side in Europe and domestically is evidence of why Chelsea are so fancied to follow Atletico Madrid in guaranteeing a return to Europe’s elite stage via the second-tier competition, especially when making wholesale changes still means high quality and experience in the form of Gary Cahill, Victor Moses, Davide Zappacosta, Andreas Christensen, Danny Drinkwater and Olivier Giroud, who are all expected to start or play some part.
Make no mistake about it, Chelsea will still be strong with Sarri wise to see it as important to open their European campaign on a positive note whilst sustain the momentum they have following their 100% start to the season. He’ll also be aware that this fixture represents arguably their toughest group stage assignment on paper with PAOK among the second seeds in the competition.
Though unlikely to be as free-flowing as the Chelsea to have scored 14 in their opening 5 league games, The Blues should still have enough about them to keep the winning run intact ahead of a tough looking couple of weeks which has them facing West Ham in a London derby and Liverpool twice within four days in the Carabao Cup and the league.
Match Tip
I’m not expecting a Greek tragedy of any type for Chelsea in the first ever meeting between the two clubs. I do expect PAOK to run them close however and that’s why I’ve gone for the visitors to simply win the match as opposed to a slightly better priced win/goals market which in my view could go either way.
You can find more than reasonable odds of 8/11 for an away victory with Betway.
Post bet chat Nick's Tips:
Chelsea got their campaign underway with a deserved three points in Greece. I had considered adding a goals market to the bet to enhance the odds but I had a suspicion Chelsea would end up doing just enough and so it proved.