Marseilles v Bayern Munich Tip

It’s hard to imagine a team coming into a Champions League quarter final in worse shape than Marseilles do. A 1-1 draw with Nice at the weekend ended a club record worst ever run of seven consecutive defeats. The nadir came last week when Didier Deschamps’ side exited the French Cup at the hands of semi-professional outfit Quevilly. Munich, in contrast, are in fine fettle; they’ve scored 22 goals in their last five outings, including a 7-0 demolition of Basle in the second leg of the last round.

It’s pretty hard to envisage anything other than an away victory (17/20 BetVictor) but the trick is to find the right bet along those lines. Firstly, we can surely be confident that Bayern will score. The hosts will probably be fielding their third-choice goalkeeper - Mandanda is suspended while Bracigliano is suffering a crisis of confidence.

The man who Deschamps says will step in between the sticks is Elinton Andrade, who hasn’t played a game since January 2011. To make matters worse, key defender Souleymane Diawara has been ruled out for the season after suffering a cruciate ligament tear against Nice. The visitors - in particular Robben, Ribery and Gomez, will surely be licking their lips.

The chances of Marseilles scoring down the other end don’t look much brighter. The dismal run of form included just five goals in eight matches. With striker Loic Remy struggling with a hamstring injury, the prognosis looks bleak for the French.

The nature of these continental two-legged clashes means that even far superior teams aren’t typically going goal-crazy if playing away from home first. You would think that Bayern will certainly be looking to improve on their poor first leg result against Basle (1-0 defeat), but we shouldn’t expect real fireworks.

A 1-0 (6/1 Bet365) or 2-0 (8/1 Coral) away win looks most likely but I wouldn’t want to completely rule out the Germans building an even bigger cushion. All things considered, the smartest bet looks like Bayern Munich to be the only team to score at a best price of 15/8 with WilliamHill.