Uefa Champions League Matchday 3 Preview and Prediction
Matchday 3 of the 2024-25 UEFA Champions League kicks off on Tuesday night with two early matches in Milan and Monaco. Both matches are predicted to end with home wins.
AC Milan hosts Belgian side Club Brugge at San Siro still looking to get a point on the board after losing at home to Liverpool and Bayer Leverkusen in Germany. They’ve lost their opening three games of a UCL campaign only once before (2021-22)
Two Premier League clubs host games on Tuesday night, with Aston Villa at home to Bologna and Arsenal playing Shakhtar Donetsk at the Emirates Stadium.
Villa have already enjoyed victories over Young Boys and Bayern Munich in their first season of Champions League football. You have to go back to October 1981 to find the last time they won three games in Europe’s top club competition (European Cup), but they are favoured to replicate that this week, winning 56.9% of pre-match simulations versus Serie A club Bologna.
Aston Villa vs Bologna Prediction: Champions League Match Preview
Aston Villa will bid to preserve their 100% record in this season’s Champions League when they host Bologna at Villa Park on Tuesday.
In their first campaign back in Europe’s premier club competition since they won the European Cup in the 1982-83 season, Villa first beat Young Boys 3-0 in Switzerland before defeating Bayern Munich 1-0 at home.
They’ve started the Premier League season well too, with a 3-1 triumph at Fulham on Saturday taking them up to fourth with just one defeat from their eight matches.
Another victory on Tuesday would see them equal their longest streak of victories in the European Cup/Champions League, last stringing together three consecutive wins between September and October 1981.
Villa could become only the third side since the competition’s rebrand in 1992-93 to win their opening three games in the Champions League without conceding after Málaga in 2012-13 and Leicester City in 2016-17.
Just like in the Premier League, Morgan Rogers has impressed in Europe. The former Middlesbrough man has completed more dribbles than any other player in the Champions League this season (nine), with five of those coming against Bayern last time out.
While Villa has started with two victories, Bologna’s Champions League campaign opened with a 0-0 draw at home to Shakhtar Donetsk and then a 2-0 defeat at Anfield against Liverpool.
Bologna are winless in their last four games in major European competition (two draws, two defeats), and could become the first side to fail to score in their first three games in the Champions League since FK Austria Wien in 2013-14 (a run of four).
The Rossoblù have also started the domestic season poorly, winning just one of their opening eight Serie A games and languishing in the bottom half of the table after drawing 2-2 away at Genoa on Saturday.
Aston Villa vs Bologna Head-to-Head
Villa and Bologna have never faced each other in any competition. The Villans have lost four of their six European games against Italian sides, with the two wins both coming at home against Inter in October 1990 and September 1994.
After winning their first three games against English opponents in major European competition, Bologna have lost their last two such games, both away against Leeds United in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in April 1967 and then Liverpool in this season’s Champions League.
PREDICTION: HOME WIN EITHER HALF @1.33
Milan vs Club Brugge: HOME WIN @1.52
AS Monaco vs Crvena Zvezda: HOME WIN @1.39
Paris Saint-Germain vs PSV Eindhoven: HOME WIN @1.45
Real Madrid vs Borussia Dortmund: OVER 2.5 @1.36
Barcelona vs Bayern Munich: BOTH TEAMS TO SCORE @1.33
Arsenal vs Shakhtar Donetsk: OVER 2.5 @1.26
Juventus vs VfB Stuttgart: HOME DRAW NO BET @1.37
