Home advantage helps Bayer hopes

Tottenham are the only team who were not in the top two pots of seeds to be rated favourites to win their group – but that market confidence in the English side could be misplaced.

This is a tricky group with all four teams capable of taking points off each other and the decision of Spurs to move their home games to Wembley is not certain to be rewarded.

Every little helps and home advantage may be negated for Tottenham by playing in a second home, while CSKA Moscow moved into their new stadium only on Saturday while Monaco’s average attendance would shame most clubs in the Sky Bet Football League.

Bayer Leverkusen have no such concerns and they are a team with the players to trouble even stronger sides than those housed in Group E.

Bernd Leno is a keeper capable of making superb saves, new signing Aleksandar Dragovic improves the defence and the same is also true of Julian Baumgartlinger in midfield.

Karim Bellarabi will be missing for a while, possibly until after the October international break but Leverkusen are covered in the attacking midfield positions and Javier Hernandez is deadly in the penalty box.

And don’t rule Monaco out either. The French outfit have already beaten Fenerbahce and Villarreal in the preliminaries of this competition and recorded a couple of eye-catching domestic results with a 3-1 win over Paris St-Germain followed by a 4-1 success at Lille.

Recommendation
Bayer Leverkusen
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