Football Bet of the Day: AEK Athens to run riot

There are Europa Conference League second round qualifiers taking place on Wednesday and one of the more interesting fixtures sees AEK Athens host Inter Club d’Escaldes for the first leg of this particular tie (19:00).

The Andorran side defeated Velez Mostar in the first round to book this clash with a well-seasoned European side, but I do think they will realise the step up in competition here. It is from this game that my football bet of the day comes, which you will find below.

AEK Athens vs Inter Club d’Escaldes Odds

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AEK Athens are more accustomed to taking part in the upper echelons of European football, having played in the group stage of the Europa League last season. The Greek outfit have had a lot of history in Europe, which should bode well for them in this clash with last year’s runners-up in the Andorran Primera Division.

The jump in class from Velez Mostar to AEK Athens will be huge for them and I think they will struggle with the step up in class here. The selection I have gone for is the home side to score over 4.5 goals at 7/4. It may seem like a bit of a stretch but they do have some strong players in their ranks with a lot of experience at the highest levels in football.

They recently acquired the services of winger Erik Lamela, who has featured in plenty of European matches with the likes of Sevilla and Tottenham Hotspur. He won a Europa League with the Spanish side and he was a Champions League runner-up with Spurs, so that experience added to Matias Almeyda’s squad will be huge for the club.

Football Odds

Having lost last season’s top scorer (15 in all competitions) in Ezequiel Ponce to Houston Dynamo, the Double-Headed Eagle will need to find a regular source of goals from somewhere. Forward Levi Garcia was the second-leading marksman for the club behind Ponce, with 14 goals to his name, he looks to be the most primed to become their main man this season.

Then when you factor in the contributions from the likes of Steven Zuber, Niclas Eliasson and others, Almeyda still has plenty of players whom he can rely on to share the goal burden.

Of course, we are still likely to see the club acquire some new faces to strengthen their chances both in the league and in Europe, but for now they are in a strong position to navigate their way through the Europa Conference League qualifiers.

And having missed out on the league title by one point last term, I think they will be fired up for this campaign on all fronts. Inter Club d’Escaldes have never been beyond this stage in European qualifiers before and it was around this time a year ago that they were sent home after losing 6-1 to Hibernian at the same stage, losing 7-3 on aggregate.

With the greatest respect to Hibs, I think AEK Athens are a class above them, so they should have just as much joy in front of goal against Inter as the Scottish outfit did.

I fancy them to score at least five goals on Wednesday and I think 7/4 does offer excellent value for that to happen.

Offers

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