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Betting Tips: Chelsea vs Malmo

  /  autty

With Sarri's men lacking cutting edge and the visitors resilient at the back, Al Hain-Cole thinks the Stamford Bridge crowd will see a narrow home win

Chelsea will be desperate for a morale-boosting victory when they welcome Malmo to Stamford Bridge for Thursday's Europa League clash.

Although well in control of the tie after running out 2-1 winners in the away leg, the Blues are in low spirits after losing 6-0 to Manchester City and crashing out of the FA Cup to Manchester United in successive domestic matches.

With the Carabao Cup final coming up this weekend, they are priced at 11/50 (1.22) with SportPesa to give their confidence a much-needed lift by coming out on top here.

Uwe Rosler's men have won just one of their last five matches in this competition, but can be backed at 13/1 (14.00) to add to the home crowd's misery with a shock victory in west London.

Three of those five fixtures have resulted in draws, and you can get odds of 21/4 (6.25) on the guests earning a creditable stalemate in this one.

Fringe players Danny Drinkwater and Gary Cahill are both injury doubts, while Ruben Loftus-Cheek is also still struggling with a back issue.

The Swedish side have no new injury problems to deal with, and are likely to field the same line-up that put up a good fight last week.

With his future looking bleaker than ever after he was booed by the home fans following Monday's limp FA Cup defeat, Maurizio Sarri could desperately do with an emphatic win on Thursday.

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem that particularly realistic given his side's lack of cutting edge in the last two or three matches, with the visitors unlikely to do them any favours.

Malmo have conceded just 10 goals in nine Europa League games this season, never letting in more than two in a match and keeping two clean sheets against Besiktas in the group stages.

With Chelsea hardly firing on all cylinders, odds of 20/23 (1.87) offer solid value on them being forced to settle for a narrow victory in a match that features under 3.5 goals.

Related: ChelseaMalmo FF