Uefa Champions League Matchday 6 Preview And Prediction
Matchday 6 of the 2024-25 UEFA Champions League kicks off with two early games on Tuesday. British sides Celtic and Liverpool travel to Dinamo Zagreb and Girona, respectively.
Liverpool are the only team with a 100% record coming into MD 6. They’ve won all five of their league-phase games and top the table with just one goal conceded overall. Arne Slot’s winning run is already the longest by a manager from the start of a spell with an English club in the competition (5).
Girona will hope to end a run of seven successive games without a win by La Liga clubs against Premier League opposition in the UCL (D3 L4), but the Opta supercomputer doesn’t give them much hope. They won just 18.0% of the pre-match simulations, while Liverpool kept up their flawless record 60.7% of the time.
Bayern Munich (77.6% vs Shakhtar Donetsk) and Paris Saint-Germain (65.6% at RB Salzburg) are strong favourites to pick up three points on their travels, while PSV (42.4% vs Brest) and Sporting CP (41.7% at Club Brugge) are also favoured as away clubs.
Real Madrid travel to Serie A leaders Atalanta and our expert sees this as one of the tightest games to call on MD 6. The record champions have a slight edge (38.4%) over the home side (36.3%), but Atalanta are unbeaten in the Champions League this season (W3 D2), including victories in each of their last two games. If they avoid defeat here, it would mark their longest-ever run without defeat in the competition (six games).
Carlo Ancelotti’s side have lost three of their five matches in the competition this season (W2), including the last two against Milan and Liverpool. If they lose this match, it would be the first time in European Cup/Champions League history that the winners of the previous edition have had a three-game losing streak the following season.
Inter Milan are second in the league phase table after five matchdays but face a tricky away game at Bayer Leverkusen this time out. The Serie A giants have won their last four Champions League games without conceding a goal. The last Italian side to win five games in a row and keep a clean sheet in each was Juventus in the 2012-13 campaign (5).
Away sides were favoured for success across most of Tuesday’s matches, but the opposite can be said for Wednesday night’s action.
Our expert has labelled the home side as favourites for victory in seven of the nine matches to be played on Wednesday, including both of the early kick-offs in Madrid and Lille.
The prediction that Atlético Madrid will come out on top against Slovan Bratislava will hardly come as a surprise, with the Slovakian side on zero points and with a goal difference of -14 after five games. Diego Simeone’s side won 83.4% of pre-match predictions, which is the highest value across the entire matchday.
It’s a crucial game with both sides on 10 points and next to each other in the table, but home advantage could be key for the Gunners. Only Barcelona and Bayern Munich (both 7) have won more home games in the Champions League since the start of last season than Arsenal (6), while their six clean sheets are the joint most in that time along with Inter.
Fellow Premier League side Manchester City are having a rough time at the moment, having won just one and lost six of their last nine games in all competitions. They did avoid defeat at the weekend, however, drawing 2-2 in the Premier League at Crystal Palace. Pep Guardiola’s side are tipped for an away win at Juventus in the UCL on Wednesday (47.8%), which would feel like a shock in the current climate.
Barcelona travels to Borussia Dortmund, where an away win is also on the cards. Robert Lewandowski will face his former club, having reached 100 goals in the Champions League on MD 5.
Both sides have done well across the opening five matchdays, with BVB winning four of their five games to secure their best UCL start since 2016-17, while Barcelona are looking to win five consecutive Champions League matches for the first time since winning their first five games in the 2020-21 campaign.
10TH DEC
Girona FC vs Liverpool FC: AWAY WIN @1.46
Atalanta vs Real Madrid: OVER 2 @1.24
Bayer Leverkusen vs Inter: OVER 1.5 @1.23
FC Salzburg vs Paris Saint Germain: AWAY WIN @1.38
FC Shakhtar Donetsk vs Bayern Munich: OVER 2.5 @1.40
11TH DEC
Atletico Madrid vs Slovan Bratislava: OVER 2.5 @1.30
Arsenal FC vs AS Monaco: HOME WN @1.32
Borussia Dortmund vs FC Barcelona: BOTH TEAMS TO SCORE @1.40
Juventus vs Manchester City: OVER 1.5 @1.31
Benfica vs Bologna: 1 DNB @1.23
