Against All Odds: Tense encounter expected at the Lane

4Apr 2013

Europa Liga

Tottenham face Basel in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final tie this evening and while the Betfair market is predicting plenty of goals, Paul Robinson thinks we could be in for a tense affair.

Spurs scraped past Inter Milan after nearly blowing a three goal lead in Italy. After thrashing the Italians 3-0 at the Lane, the North Londonders were taken to extra time by Inter and it was only a 96th minute Emmanuel Adebayor strike that saved them. Gareth Bale was suspended for that match after picking up a booking for diving in the first leg but he is available again now and he scored his 22nd goal of the season at the weekend.

Brad Friedel will continue in goal as Villas-Boas has utilised the American in this competition since Hugo Lloris became a fixture in the first team and he showed his well-being by producing some vital saves at the Liberty on Saturday. Jermain Defoe is sidelined with a muscle problem though and while he has been out of form, Adebayor only has four goals to his name this season.

Basel are the reigning Swiss champions but they didn't make it past the qualifying rounds of the Champions League. After a slow start to their Europa League campaign, Murat Yakin's side not only came through their group, but they then despatched of the dangerous Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk and Zenit in the last 32 and last 16 respectively.

It is interesting to note that all four of their knockout games went under 2.5 goals as they kept clean sheets in both home legs and only scored one themselves in the away fixtures. In fact, their defence is in excellent form domestically as well - four clean sheets from their last five in the Swiss Super League and just 20 goals conceded in total.

This won't be a walk in the park for Spurs and while I was tempted to recommend a lay of them at 1.52 I think it's a much safer bet to oppose over 2.5 goals at 1.81. Basel will set up to keep the score down and be in with a chance in Switzerland next week and with Gareth Bale being the only Spurs attacking player in goalscoring form, I can't see a rout. That's why, at the current odds, I have to make over 2.5 goals my lay of the day.

This match is live on ITV1 at 20:05