Porto v Brugge: Hosts to punish poor travellers

FC Porto v Club Brugge
Tuesday 13 September, 20:00
Live on BT Sport 7

Porto were rather unlucky to lose away to Atletico Madrid on matchday one of the Champions League and can put their qualification bid back on track by beating Brugge on Tuesday.

The Portuguese were level after 90 and 96 minutes in the Metropolitano last week but still ended up losing 2-1.

In what wasn't the most open game, they won the shot count 17-10, led 2.1-0.8 on expected goals (xG) and also had more corners (6-2). It was a display which certainly gave them something to build on.

Back on home soil, they should be confident of victory.

Only Liverpool, Atleti and Lyon won at the Estadio do Dragao last season, while earlier this term Sergio Conceicao's men dominated Sporting Lisbon and ran out impressive 3-0 winners.

On the same night Porto were suffering late heartache, Brugge edged past Bayer Leverkusen 1-0. It was a struggle though - the Germans saw two efforts chalked off and also hit the post.

The Belgians' away record in Europe is cause for concern - they've lost six of eight over the last three seasons and in the group stage last season they lost 5-0 at RB Leipzig and 4-1 at both Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain.

Despite losing top scorer Mehdi Taremi (suspended) and wide man Otavio (injured), Porto should still have enough to win this, although those attacking absentees will likely mean it won't be easy.

Brugge were pretty stoic last week and will look to thwart again here so backing a low-scoring home win looks the way to go.

Porto have only conceded four times in six domestic games so far so I'm prepared to back them to win narrowly without conceding.

This can be done via the Bet Builder feature - Porto to win and under 2.5 goals in the match produces a price of around 5/2.

With both sides well behaved so far this season - Brugge are top of the fair play table in Belgium, while in Portugal no side has seen fewer yellow cards than Porto - I was tempted to add under 3.5 cards but referee Anastasios Sidiropoulos has been a pretty high carder in European appointments.

The Greek has shown at least four cards in 15 of his last 21 UEFA club games and that's enough to put me off.

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