Good Morning ☀️,

It’s Lucas here, your Chief Predictions Officer at What Are the Odds?

The weekend might be over. But lucky for us, that doesn’t mean the football stops. This week, we’ve got a metric ton of mid-week action in Round 3 of the UEFA Champions League (with even more to come later in the week). So let’s get straight into it.

What’s ahead in today’s edition of What Are the Odds?:

• This week’s Champions League match schedule. 🗓️

• Our top three picks from this week’s UCL action. ✅

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Today, we’re covering the full 18 matches across Round 3 in the UEFA Champions League. (Note: all dates and times are in CEST)

🇪🇺 Champions League

Tuesday 20 October

• 18:45 — Fenerbahce vs Slavia Prague

• 18:45 — Sabah Baku vs Borussia Dortmund

• 21:00 — Roma vs Slovan Bratislava

• 21:00 — Liverpool vs Villarreal

• 21:00 — Man City vs AEK Athens

• 21:00 — Napoli vs Bodo/Glimt

• 21:00 — PSG vs Barcelona

• 21:00 — Porto vs PSV Eindhoven

• 21:00 — Stuttgart vs Atletico Madrid

Wednesday 21 October

• 18:45 — Como vs Man Utd

• 18:45 — Lille vs Galatasaray

• 21:00 — Aston Villa vs Viking

• 21:00 — Bayern Munich vs Arsenal

• 21:00 — Club Brugge vs Lens

• 21:00 — Inter Milan vs Shakhtar Donetsk

• 21:00 — Real Betis vs Feyenoord

• 21:00 — Real Madrid vs RB Leipzig

• 21:00 — Sporting CP vs LASK Linz

Want to get the best odds on these matches?

⚽ Roma vs Slovan Bratislava
🏟️ UEFA Champions League
📅 Tuesday 20 October; 21:00 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Slovan lost all ten Champions League games they’ve ever played and conceded nine goals in the two games it played this season.

  • Roma has kept five clean sheets in seven league games and conceded three goals in total in a much tougher league than Slovan’s accustomed to.

  • Roma’s centre-forward (Donyell Malen) is on a historic run with 23 goals since joining in January. (Only two players in Europe’s five biggest leagues have scored more in that time.)

• CXSports says: There’s one thing hanging over Slovan’s head which makes the outcome here almost too predictable — they’ve never found a way to stop a Champions League team scoring. Never. And they’ve lost all ten matches in the competition so far, including the two this season where they conceded nine goals and scored none after a 6-1 loss at PSG and a 3-0 home defeat to Stuttgart. That works out to an average of 4.5 conceded a game in a competition where the average team concedes about two.
  
  As for Roma, they’re unbeaten in Serie A with 16 scored and 3 conceded, with five of their seven games ending in a clean sheet. And while that might seem like a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison, take a minute to put it into context. Slovan’s currently #62 in the FIFA club coefficient rankings. Meanwhile, the majority of Italian clubs rank higher than this — it’s not until you get to the 9th-ranked Italian club, Bologna, that you find a lower FIFA coefficient (Bologna’s #66). In other words, Roma’s league numbers come against teams that are, for the most part, tougher than Slovan.
  
  So, given that, what hope does Slovan have? Well, the only real thing working against Roma here is their injury list: Svilar, Kone and Cristante are out, while Dybala is also sidelined. Although, that might not really make that much of a difference here — on Saturday they still managed to beat Genoa 2-0 with five regulars missing, including Malen — their top scorer (23 goals since his January debut — only Harry Kane and Raphinha have bettered that). And Malen is back for this game.
  
  In short, this one should finish in a fairly clean victory for Roma.

• Score prediction: 3-0 for Roma

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Roma Victory

• Odds Range: 1.07-1.19

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Over/Under (Over 2.5)

• Odds Range: 1.15-1.33

⚽ Man City vs AEK Athens
🏟️ UEFA Champions League
📅 Tuesday 20 October; 21:00 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • City score at almost twice the average rate in the Premier League — in seven Premier League games (all of which they won), they’ve scored 19 goals: 2.7 a game, against a league average of 1.4.

  • AEK barely scores in Europe with just two goals in two Champions League games, one a game, against a competition average of 2.04 per team.

  • City’s only recent defeat came against the best attack in the competition, PSG, who’ve scored 10 goals in two UCL games this season (more than anyone else).

• CXSports says: City are currently scoring at nearly double the Premier League average — they’re managing 2.7 goals per game against a league average of just 1.4. Meanwhile, while AEK’s also got some similarly flashy domestic numbers (2.6 a game against a Greek average of 1.26), let’s not forget that Greek and English football aren’t exactly comparable. And that shows in the European numbers. Athens has scored just 2 goals in in the first two rounds of the UCL this season, while City’s scored double.
  
  With that said, there is one apparent saving grace for Athens — both sides have conceded 4 UCL goals in the first two rounds. However, City conceded all 4 of its goals in a single game against PSG — the highest-scoring side in this year’s UCL bunch, and the #3 club in the FIFA club coefficients. Meanwhile, Athens conceded 3 against in its game against Shakhtar Donetsk — a #28 club that’s hardly setting the European stage on fire.
  
  As such, even each side’s European numbers aren’t even on the same level — City’s faced tougher competition, and still managed to put up the same defensive numbers while posting vastly better attacking numbers. So while that might leave Athens with the chance of scoring a goal in this game, City’s chances are scoring multiple goals in response are so vastly superior that we don’t really see how Athens can hope for much here. So expect this one to finish clearly in City’s favor, potentially with a multi-goal winning margin.

• Score prediction: 3-1 for Man City

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Man City Victory

• Odds Range: 1.03-1.11

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Over/Under (Over 2.5)

• Odds Range: 1.20-1.29

⚽ Inter Milan vs Shakhtar Donetsk
🏟️ UEFA Champions League
📅 Wednesday 21 October; 21:00 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • The last time Shakhtar scored against Inter was all the way back in 2005.

  • Inter’s scoring strongly at home this season — they’ve won all four home league games with 15 goals scored across those games.

  • Inter’s currently #5 in the FIFA club coefficients, while Shakhtar’s way back in #28.

• CXSports says: If we pull up the UCL numbers for both sides here, Shakhtar looks better. They’ve got four points to Inter’s zero, and have conceded two goals to Inter’s six. But, that’s just a two game sample — too few to draw any conclusions against. And, it also saw each side facing a very different class of opponents.Inter’s played Real Madrid and Brugge (#3 and #17 in the FIFA Club coefficients, respectively), while Shakhtar’s played Athens (#67) and PSV Eindhoven (#23).
  
  So, despite what the UCL numbers might suggest, Inter’s the clear pick here, and the reason is brutally simple — they know how to pile on the goals at home, with 15 goals scored in 4 home league games so far this season. And add to that the simple fact that Shakhtar haven’t scored a goal against Milan since all the way back in 2015. Put those two facts together and it’s hard to see how there’s much of a case to be made for the visitors in this game… besides their “better” UCL numbers this season.
  
  Of course, there are a couple of things that have the potential to trip up Milan somewhat here. First, they’re currently missing Lautaro (their captain and, more importantly, top-scorer). However, his deputy, Thuram, has actually managed to score exactly as many goals as Lautaro this season. So that’s probably a non-factor here, even if missing a man does sound problematic at first. And as for the other thing working against Inter here, they do have a problem at the defensive end of the pitch. They’ve conceded 6 UCL goals this season. And while we do have to take into account the fact they did so against stronger competition than anything Shakhtar’s faced so far, 6 goals conceded in 2 games is still 6 goals conceded in 2 games.
  
  With that said, none of that really tips the balance enough to make Shakhtar look like a serious chance here. After all, they haven’t even scored a goal against Milan in over 20 years. And, given that Milan’s 2 UCL losses this season were only by a single goal against much stronger competition than Shakhtar, this one will likely deliver Inter’s first positive UCL result this campaign.

• Score prediction: 2-1 for Inter Milan

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Inter Milan Victory

• Odds Range: 1.11-1.22

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (Yes)

• Odds Range: 1.57-1.78

Make your sportsbook work for you!

That’s a wrap for today. But we’ll be back later in the week as we look ahead to the upcoming action across the Europa League and Europa Conference League.

Until then, enjoy the football.