Wednesday Champions League Bet Builder Tips: Bank on Sterling in Man City win

Sterling can add value to City win

Manchester City 1.162/13 v Sporting Lisbon 23.022/1; The Draw 9.617/2
Wednesday 9 March, 20:00
Live on BT Sport 2

It's fair to say that Manchester City's second-leg against Sporting Lisbon has been rendered somewhat irrelevant by the first-leg result.

Manchester City won the first-leg 5-0 in Portugal, which essentially means that they are already through to the quarter-finals. Pep Guardiola may well look to rotate a little here, ahead of an upcoming away trip to Crystal Palace in the Premier League.

On Sunday, City beat Manchester United 4-1, with the likes of Oleksandr Zinchenko, Fernandinho, Ilkay Gundogan, Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus on the bench. There is therefore plenty of scope for Guardiola to make changes, while keeping the team relatively strong. A booking for Kevin De Bruyne would see him suspended for the first-leg of the quarter-final, so he is one player that is likely to be rested.

Even if Manchester City are weakened, it's hard to see Sporting finding the motivation to really compete, when a comeback is all but impossible. Sporting won 2-0 at home to Arouca at the weekend, which leaves them in second place in the Primeira Liga table, six points behind the leaders Porto.

City should win this one, so we'll start by backing them at 1/8 and add over 2.5 goals at 2/5, which has landed in six of their seven Champions League games. There have been goals scored in both halves in six of City's last seven home games, which is available at 4/11.

Sterling seems certain to start the game and there are all sorts of options that we could take involving him, which would further increase the odds. The most cautious punt is for Sterling to merely have one or more shot on target, at a price of 1/6. That brings the total price for this four-fold to 1.981/1.

French legion will fire in the shots

Real Madrid 2.68/5 v PSG 2.89/5; The Draw 3.929/10
Wednesday 9 March, 20:00
Live on BT Sport 3

In contrast to Wednesday's other Champions League match, there is all to play for in Real Madrid's tie with PSG.

PSG won the first-leg 1-0 at home, with Kylian Mbappe scoring a brilliant late goal to win the game for the Ligue 1 leaders. Since that win they have lost two of their subsequent three games (W1), which included a 1-0 defeat at second place Nice at the weekend.

Mauricio Pochettino's team remain 13 points clear at the top of the French league, but their erratic performances should give some encouragement to Real Madrid, who have rediscovered their own form since the first-leg. Madrid have won each of their three games after losing to PSG and enjoyed a 4-1 home win over top four contenders Real Sociedad at the weekend.

Karim Benzema has scored in all three of those games and will be the man that Madrid will be relying upon to mount a comeback. The French striker has scored five goals in six Champions League games this season, while averaging four shots per game.

We will start out Bet Builder with Benzema to have two or more shots on target at 8/11. His French international teammate Mbappe was the star of the first match and is 1/6 to have one or more shots on target.

With only one goal scored in the reverse fixture, under 4.5 goals looks a safe bet at 2/11. That completes a treble at odds of 3.39239/100.