Champions League: Manchester City- Dynamo Kiev (written 09.30 UK time today)

 

This looks job done for City after their 3-1 win in Kiev, but the hosts are not playing well and that game aside, they have beaten only Aston Villa since the start of last month, with a couple of heavy defeats along the way. Main focus will clearly be the Champions League of course, but they also have to finish top 4 as a minimum and ensure participation in the competition next season and currently in 4th and with West Ham just two points adrift and Manchester United (whom they play in the derby game on Sunday) just another two further back, there is every chance that they will play tonight with one eye on their weekend fixture.

Kiev were rusty in the first leg, that was to have been expected, they had not played a competitive game in eleven weeks,they have now had four games since the winter break and will be approaching full fitness and ready to show their best.

Dynamo currently lead Shakhtar Donetsk, who are flying in the Europa League, by three points at the top of the Ukrainian domestic league, where Kiev are unbeaten on the road 8-1-0, conceding just three goals. In the CL they won 2-0 at both Porto and Maccabi Tel Aviv and were 1-1 at Stamford Bridge with eight minutes left to play, before conceding a late winner. They did not venture forward much there until after the break, but of course cannot afford to wait that long this evening, they looked dangerous when they did and in Andriy Yarmolenko (pictured) they have a world class player who has 110 goals and 72 assists for Kiev in less than 300 appearance and from out wide, he has been in the form of his life in the last two seasons and has scored in each of his last three starts.

City are vulnerable, Dynamo MUCH better than they showed in the first leg and the edge in fitness/freshnest has probably swung their way now. City have conceded in their last nine Champions League starts and at the Etihad in their last 14 ! They have conceded two or more in ten of those (!), including to BMG, Plzen, CSKA Moscow (twice) and Ajax and if Dynamo look at that record, they will fancy their chances of scoring a couple of goals, even if ultimately it might not be enough.
 

1.25 units Dynamo Kiev to score two or more goals 4.0-4.33 general quote, given that they have to gamble and that City can progress if they concede twice regardless of what they do themselves and that they have allowed two in 71.42% (10/14) of competition home games ( which equates to odds of 1.40), how can that possible be correct ?