Former favourites Man City look set to exit
Manchester City's prospects of ending their 35-year trophy drought by winning the Europa League are in severe jeopardy following a 2-0 defeat to Dynamo Kiev in Ukraine on Thursday night that has seen their odds to win the tournament fly out to [10.5], with their conquerors passing them at [9.6].
The Citizens are [3.25] to qualify after goals from Andriy Shevchenko and Oleh Gusev left them with a mountain to climb back at Eastlands next week, though they can take heart from the fact Fulham recovered a two-goal deficit at this point last season against Juventus and went on to reach the final.
Rangers are considered more likely than Roberto Mancini's side to reach the quarter-finals after they ground out another fine result with a 0-0 draw at PSV Eindhoven, vindicating our advice to lay the Eredivisie leaders. Despite that, they remain outsiders to progress at [2.6] to finish the job at Ibrox.
Liverpool completed a hat-trick of British teams failing to score but even though they lost 1-0 to Sporting Braga, they are second favourites to go all the way at [8.0] and firm [1.74] favourites to fight their way through at Anfield, where they have won nine of their last ten Europa League games.
Villarreal are an intriguing [8.2] to land the first major silverware of their existence following a fantastic 3-2 victory away to Bayer Leverkusen. Spanish clubs have won Europe's second most prestigious competition in four of their last seven years and they are the nation's sole survivors.
The favourites however are 2002-03 winners FC Porto at [4.6] after their brilliant season continued with a 1-0 triumph away to CSKA Moscow. Elsewhere, FC Twente stunned Zenit St Peterburg 3-0 to move in to [14.0], leaving it to Spartak Moscow ([27.0]) to salvage Russian pride by beating Ajax in Amsterdam.
Who would your money be on at this point? Tell us in the box below...
Published: 11 Mar 2011
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