Expert predictions and football betting tips from Mark Langdon

Football betting tips & analysis from Racing Post's Mark Langdon.

Best bet

Barcelona -1 Asian handicap
1pt 17-20 bet365

"I don't think players of the quality of Mbappe and Neymar should be playing for PSG. They shouldn’t be playing in the French league. It is a poor league, an average league and it’s just about these Champions League nights basically. Playing week in, week out in the French league … players of that quality should not be playing in that league."

Those were the words of Jamie Carragher on CBS Sports, which was pretty disrespectful considering Lyon reached the Champions League semi-finals last season and Marseille were Europa League finalists in 2018.

So many players have graced the Premier League after arriving from French clubs who aren't Paris St-Germain. Also keep in mind the top four in France are separated by only five points with PSG second having lost eight league games.

Ligue 1 can hold its own with most of Europe and where would you stop with this cull of other leagues? Should Robert Lewandowski leave Bayern? Why is Romelu Lukaku wasting his time at Inter?

PSG pay plenty. It's in a decent, if overrated, European city with a great team and a potentially superb manager in Mauricio Pochettino.

But Carragher mainly misses the point on the fact that the Champions League is everything now to a lot of top players.

They don't see themselves as being defined by what they do against Strasbourg but in the Champions League knockout stages and there could be a lot to be said for sticking with Paris St-Germain, who are virtually guaranteed to be in the competition every season as long as their finances remain in place.

Why risk that to maybe sign for a club in the Premier League, where Chelsea and Manchester United have missed out recently? Dethroned English champions Liverpool could be absent next season and then what? Play in the Europa League, or even worse the horrendous-sounding Europa Conference League which starts next season.

A European Super League remains a terrible idea, but there is also no point pretending the weekly domestic grind is where the true glory sits for most elite superstars.

PSG against Bayern Munich produced the best matches of the season and whether Mbappe plays against Angers, Augsburg, Aston Villa or Athletic Bilbao at the weekend won't define his legacy in quite the same way as any possible Champions League triumphs.

Athletic lost last season's Copa del Rey final earlier this month and could be set for a painful quickfire double when tackling Barcelona in Seville for the 2021 edition.

Barcelona's underlying data suggests they are by a fair distance the best team in Spain this season and they are unlucky to be third, albeit only two points off the pace being set by leaders Atletico Madrid.

Barca have won 13 of their 15 La Liga matches in 2021 and two of those successes came against Athletic. On both occasions the scoreline (3-2 away and 2-1 at home) suggested a close contest but the reality was something different.

Ronald Koeman's side averaged 58 per cent possession and it was 15-5 in the shots-on-target count with a total expected-goals figure of 3.6-1.1.

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