Good Morning ☀️,

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

With hump day here, it’s time to start looking ahead to what’s in store for the rest of the week. So today, we’re looking at the upcoming Ligue 1 and La Liga games, with both set to kick off this week’s festivities tomorrow night.

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

• This week’s full LaLiga and Ligue 1 match schedules. 🗓️

• Our top three picks from this week’s Ligue 1 and La Liga games. ✅

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This week, we’ve got a nice series of matches coming up across Ligue 1 and La Liga with some great imbalanced matches ripe for the picking. (Note: all dates and times are in CEST)

🇫🇷 Ligue 1

03 Sep Thursday

• 20:45 — Toulouse vs Lille

04 Sep Friday

• 19:00 — Lyon vs Auxerre

• 21:05 — PSG vs Monaco

05 Sep Saturday

• 17:15 — Lens vs Lorient

• 20:45 — Le Havre vs Brest

• 20:45 — Nice vs Le Mans

06 Sep Sunday

• 15:00 — Troyes vs Strasbourg

• 17:15 — Angers vs Rennes

• 20:45 — Marseille vs Paris FC

🇪🇸 La Liga

03 Sep Thursday

• 21:00 — Real Sociedad vs Celta Vigo

04 Sep Friday

• 21:00 — Real Betis vs Real Madrid

05 Sep Saturday

• 16:15 — Athletic Bilbao vs Atletico Madrid

• 18:30 — Rayo Vallecano vs Racing Santander

• 21:00 — Villarreal vs Deportivo La Coruna

06 Sep Sunday

• 16:15 — Valencia vs Barcelona

• 18:30 — Alaves vs Osasuna

• 18:30 — Malaga vs Levante

• 21:00 — Espanyol vs Sevilla

Want to get the best odds on these matches?

⚽ PSG vs Monaco
🏟️ French Ligue 1
📅 Friday 04 September; 21:05 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • PSG has trailed 2-0 in both of their matches this season and have only escaped those games with two separate 2-2 draws.

  • Monaco is the only unbeaten, un-scored-against team left in Ligue 1 after two rounds with 2 wins, 0 goals conceded, and 3 goals scored.

  • The last five PSG-Monaco matches across all competitions have produced 19 goals (3.8 per game) with the results split evenly — 2 wins each, and a draw.

• CXSports says: PSG’s gotten off to a rough start this season after opening with 2 narrow 2-2 draws to find themselves in 11th on the Ligue 1 table. But they’ll be looking to change their fortunes here as they host their first Ligue 1 match of the season after Parc des Princes’s turf was freshly relaid after a heatwave cooked it. And there’s more than the return to home turf running in their favor this time around, with Ousmane Dembélé (the reigning Ballon d'Or winner) and João Neves back in the squad for this one.
  
  As for Monaco, they’ve had a much better start to the season with two wins, zero goals conceded, and three scored, leaving them at the top of the Ligue 1 table. So, at first glance, it looks like their new head coach Filipe Luís has been doing a decent job. However, while early season results would seem to point to an obvious outcome here, there’s one small detail that’s probably worth paying attention to here. Monaco’s opening game, which delivered most of its goals this season, was played at home, while its away game was played against Ligue 1 tail-ender Le Havre. Meanwhile, PSG’s played both of its openers on the road, including one against Lille. This match flips that dynamic for both sides, with Monaco forced to face much tougher competition on the road with PSG hosting Monaco for this one.
  
  So, how does this one actually play out? Well, history tends to suggest that this fixture doesn't exactly go light on the goals. Across the last five head-to-heads, these two have averaged a combined 3.8 goals a game, with the results themselves split evenly — two wins apiece and a draw. And while we don’t expect this to be an uncompetitive, one-sided game, we suspect PSG’s attacking talent (even after missing a full pre-season together) should be too much for Monaco to shut out completely, especially with Dembélé and Torres both in the mix. What might let them down, however, is the same defense that's conceded four goals in two opening games, which is the kind of thing Monaco will be looking to exploit on the night.

• Score prediction: 3-2 for PSG

Bet Option #1

• Bet: PSG Victory

• Odds Range: 1.28-1.46

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (Yes)

• Odds Range: 1.45-1.66

⚽ Real Betis vs Real Madrid
🏟️ Spanish La Liga
📅 Friday 04 September; 21:00 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Real Madrid's kicked off the season with a 3.33 goals-per-game average along with three wins in three games while only conceding 2.

  • Since March 2023, Real Madrid haven't won away at Betis in four straight league visits: a 0-0 draw, a 1-1 draw, a 2-1 loss, and another 1-1 draw.

  • Real Betis got the season off to a solid start with 2 clean sheets, but that fell apart in a 5-2 collapse at Levante.

• CXSports says: José Mourinho’s back in charge of Real Madrid, the results speak for themselves: 10 goals scored, 2 conceded, and three wins, leaving them with a +8 goal difference and a per-game goal average of 3.33. And, of course, Kylian Mbappé has been a feature in those results. But this is far from being a one-man band — of Madrid’s 10 goals, Mbappé has scored four, with three of those coming in a hat-trick against Real Sociedad. In other words, this looks like a cohesive team following a manager with a plan. And that’s built the kind of early-season momentum that makes predictions like this feel easy.
  
  With that said, this particular fixture has a habit of not following the expected script. Real Madrid hasn’t won a single one of their last four league games at Real Betis — a run stretching back to March 2023 that includes two 1-1 draws, a scoreless stalemate, and a 2-1 loss. And across those four matches, Real Madrid managed just 3 goals (0.75 a game), which is a fraction of what they're usually capable of producing. So, there’s clearly something about Betis — the stadium, the crowd, a mysterious x-factor… — that has consistently stumped Real Madrid's attack. We’ve also got to remember that Betis is also a slightly different proposition to the mid-table side that used to make up the numbers — these days, they’re a club playing Champions League football for the first time since 2005.
  
  Of course, none of that changes what just happened at Levante, where Betis completely collapsed to concede five goals in a single match after opening the season with back-to-back clean sheets. So there are some questions about consistency right now. That's either a weird outlier, or it’s a serious crack that Madrid will find and use.
  
  For now, we’re assuming the Levante result was a glitch. However, even assuming this, Real Madrid's attack is simply too productive right now relative to Betis's defensive depth. As such, we expect this match to break Madrid’s winless streak at Betis.

• Score prediction: 1-2 for Real Madrid

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Real Madrid Victory

• Odds Range: 1.26-1.45

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Both Teams to Score (Yes)

• Odds Range: 1.45-1.58

⚽ Valencia vs Barcelona
🏟️ Spanish La Liga
📅 Sunday 06 September; 16:15 (CEST)

• Top 3 Stats:

  • Barcelona are averaging 4.0 goals scored and 0.67 conceded per game; Valencia are averaging 0.33 scored and 1.33 conceded.

  • Barcelona have won 4 of the last 5 head-to-heads with an aggregate of 21-5 with the only Valencia win in that stretch came after Barcelona had already claimed the title (i.e., they had nothing left to play for).

  • Valencia hasn’t scored a single home goal all season, while Barcelona's only away game ended in a clean sheet victory with a 5-goal winning margin.

• CXSports says: Valencia looks like a football team that’s already losing its grip on a season that's barely even begun. So far, they’ve taken just one point from three games, scored exactly once, and sit level on points with the four clubs in the actual relegation zone. Their only saving grace is a marginally less catastrophic goal difference compared to the others the relegation zone.
  
  Meanwhile, Barcelona have kicked things off about as well as you could expect. In three games, they’ve taken three victories, scored twelve goals and only conceded two, and lead the table on a goal difference of plus ten. And they managed to do all of this without a recognized senior striker on the roster with Raphinha playing through the middle and a 19-year-old Yamal chipping in from the left being the ones doing most of the damage.
  
  Of course, none of this is especially new for Valencia when coming up against Barcelona. Barcelona’s generally dominated this fixture, including having taken four victories inthe last five matches by an aggregate of 21 goals to 5. The only exception to that was a Valencia victory last time these two met. However, we’re not sure we can count that as a real result — it came on the last day of the season after Barcelona had already shifted into celebration mode after having been crowned champions three matchdays earlier. And once you strip that one out, the pattern looks extremely one-sided: 6-0, 5-0, 7-1, 2-1, all going Barcelona’s way.
  
  Now throw in the fact that, this season, Valencia hasn’t scored a single goal at home. All they’ve got is a scoreless draw with Celta Vigo followed by a 1-0 defeat to Real Betis. Now throw that up against Barcelona, who’s only away game thus far ended in a clean sheet victory over Elche by a massive 5-goal margin.
  
  As such, this one should be rather predictable. Valencia will try to find the net at home for the first time this season. And maybe they will. But there’s no denying the sheer superiority of Barcelona here, both in terms of early-season performance and the history in this fixture.

• Score prediction: 1-3 for Barcelona

Bet Option #1

• Bet: Barcelona Victory

• Odds Range: 1.18-1.37

Bet Option #2

• Bet: Over/Under (Over 2.5)

• Odds Range: 1.25-1.44

Make your sportsbook work for you!

That’s a wrap for today. We’ll be back later in the week as we look ahead to this weekend’s upcoming Premier League and Bundesliga games.

Until then, enjoy the football.