Football Bet of the Day: Back dazzling Dembele to strike

• PSG on a high after knocking out Liverpool

• Emery up against his old employers

• Dembele on phenomenal form for hosts

PSG v Aston Villa
Wednesday 09 April, 20:00
Live on Discovery+

Real Madrid were blown away by the Declan Rice Show, and so were we. Rice's brace of stupendous free-kicks powered Arsenal to a 3-0 first-leg victory last night, and the Gunners have one foot in the quarter-finals.

We're off to Paris now, as Aston Villa visit PSG for the latest edition in the friendly rivalry between Spanish coaching scions Luis Enrique and Unai Emery. Both have developed their squads and their clubs, and both are held in high esteem.

Emery has history with PSG and with Luis Enrique. Although the Basque boss had plenty of domestic success as the PSG coach, his greatest failure as a coach was probably with the French giants. Leading 4-0 from the first leg of a tie against Barcelona in 2017, PSG went to Camp Nou and lost 6-1, a comeback forever referred to as La Remontada. Luis Enrique was the Barca coach on that famous night.

Emery has long since bounced back from that horrendous moment, and he is leading Aston Villa to an extraordinary season. The West Midlands outfit are in the FA Cup semi-finals, they are in the mix to qualify for the Champions League through their Premier League placing, and they have had a fantastic Champions League campaign.

However, this tie against PSG is the acid test. The capital club have just secured another Ligue 1 title (they remain unbeaten in the top division), they have reached the Coupe de France final and they just knocked out Liverpool in the Champions League. Luis Enrique's team have lost just one of their last 29 games, and that was a totally undeserved defeat against Liverpool in the first leg of a tie they turned around anyway.

My bet here focuses on Ousmane Dembele, who has been absolutely stellar for PSG since the turn of the year. The French international has scored 24 goals in his last 20 club appearances, and is trading at 2.1411/10 to find the net here.

While I expect Villa to be competitive, they have kept just one clean sheet in their five UCL away games, and that was at hapless Young Boys, who were one of the worst teams in the competition.

Now read Kev's preview of Barcelona v Borussia Dortmund here!