It’s Champions League football or bust for three clubs playing Thursday night football and all of them face a struggle to achieve it.
Tottenham’s season has been an absolute disaster with Sunday’s 5-1 thrashing at Anfield as Liverpool celebrated winning the Premier League title their 19th defeat in a wretched top-flight campaign.
The saving grace has been strong performances in cup competitions and their Europa League semi-final, first leg at home to Bodo/Glimt carries huge importance as the Norwegians will be a tough nut to crack on their artificial pitch in the arctic circle in the return game.
This is certainly no gimme as Bodo/Glimt beat Lazio in the last eight while Ange Postecoglou’s side have dropped four points to Leicester and were beaten at home by Ipswich among other inept efforts.
The Scandinavians, however, visit N17 with a side decimated by injuries and suspensions and Tottenham can take a decent lead into the second leg next week although they look likely to concede as they have kept just one clean sheet in their last 13 matches, which was the 1-0 away win in the quarter-final against Frankfurt.
Tottenham to win and both teams to score is 17/10 with Betway and BoyleSports while a 3-1 home triumph is 9/1 with the same two firms plus bet365 and William Hill. Spurs need their best players to produce big games and James Maddison is 11/4 to score with Paddy Power and Betfair.
Manchester United undertake a treacherous trip to an Athletic Bilbao side desperate to reach the final which will be played on home soil. They are unbeaten in front of their own fans in ten matches in all competitions and can extend that streak by beating United at 21/20 with William Hill who price a 2-0 victory at 8/1.
Nottingham Forest, meanwhile, must brush themselves down from their FA Cup semi-final defeat to Manchester City on Sunday when they bid for three Premier League points against Brentford at the City Ground.
Fifth in the final table will be enough to book them a place in the Champions League and they can climb to third by swatting aside the Bees.
A home win with both teams scoring is 3/1 with bet365, Paddy Power and Betfair, 2/1 is 9/1 with the former firm and Chris Wood to score is 7/5 with the latter, who go 13/5 Yoane Wissa finds the net for the visitors.
• Chelsea are 20/21 with BoyleSports and StarSports to lead HT/FT when they travel to Sweden to face Djurgarden in the first leg of their Europa Conference League semi-final. The Blues are 10/1 with William Hill to win 3-1 and Nicolas Jackson is 13/8 to celebrate a goal at some stage in the game.
• Shadow of Light, who won both the Dewhurst and Middle Park Stakes at Newmarket towards the end of last year, is 9/1 with Unibet to triumph in the 2000 Guineas on Saturday as flat racing holds its first Classic of 2025. Trainer Charlie Appleby can return to the winner’s enclosure on Sunday when his unbeaten filly Desert Flower wins the 1000 Guineas at evens with William Hill and Unibet.
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