The http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Royal-95-c40387 Blues are just a win away from securing a possible group stage progression as they are placed in Group B along with French and Greek domestic champions
Schalke 04 finished third in last year’s Bundesliga behind champions Borussia Dortmund and second-placed Bayern Munich. They secured automatic UEFA Champions League qualification and were placed in Group B alongside English Premier
League club http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Arsenal-c38429, French giants’ Montpellier and Olympiakos.
The Bundesliga outfit has been handed a tough group as Arsenal are Champions League veterans. They are competing in Europe’s Premier cup competition for a 15th consecutive time and are always favourites to progress to
the knockout round. Gunners have won their first two European games and are leading the group with six points.
Moreover, Olympiakos and Montpellier won their respective league titles but have failed to make an impact in Europe’s elite club competition. Both the teams are yet to register a victory in this year’s edition of the tournament.
However, the French club did take an important point home from the Veltins-Arena when they played Schalke.
The Miners have been in good form and have secured four points from their opening games of the competition. They beat Olympiakos at the Karaiskakis Stadium away from home but drew against Montpellier at home. Qualification to the
next round is still uncertain as they still have to play four more games in the group.
Die Knappen are due to play English outfit twice in two weeks time, both at away and then home. They will take on the Gunners at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday and will be looking forward to at least clinch a point to keep their
Champions League hopes alive.
The German side will be competing realistically with Montpellier and Olympiakos as it will be tough to get two favourable results against the North London club. On paper, they possess a far better team than the French and Greek
league winners.
On a more positive note, Die Konigsblauen have a very good team that has tasted the format before. In attack, they have the likes of http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Ibrahim-Afellay-c16547 and Jefferson
Farfan. All of these stars can help them go past the group stages.
Huntelaar has been in fine form this season and has netted twice in two Champions League appearances. However, they will miss their young prodigy Julian Draxler as he will miss the upcoming game against Arsenal through injury.
Furthermore, Schalke have an impressive defence in the form of club captain Benedikt Howedes and Kyriakos Papadopoulos, and they will be instrumental in their Champions League surge.
The Gelsenkirchen side resumed the league action in flying colours as they beat defending champions Borussia Dortmund 2-1 at Signal Iduna Park to maintain their third spot in the rankings. They will be hoping to upset the 2006
UEFA Champions League finalists.
Schalke have done well in Europe’s big stage in recent seasons. They reached the semi-finals of the competition in 2010 when they beat Serie A side http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Inter-c39567 Milan in a convincing manner. Nevertheless, they could not progress to the
finals as they lost to English giants’ Manchester United.
Bettor.com predicts that the German club will progress through the group stages if they maintain their good run of form.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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