Italian champions overvalued in Ukraine (September 28)

Shakhtar Donetsk vs Inter odds

Shakhtar and Inter meet again in the Champions League after clashing twice in the group stage last year, with both matches ending in a 0-0 draw.

Shakhtar lost their opening group stage game to an away loss to Moldovan club FC Sheriff 2-0. Shakhtar will need to bounce back quickly and should be able to do so after securing a few resounding victories in their nationwide campaign over the past two weekends. The question now is whether they can keep Inter on a similar result to their two encounters last season?

Inter are having a fantastic start to the Serie A season, remaining undefeated in their opening six appearances while scoring 20 goals. There were a lot of question marks surrounding their attack after Romelu Lukaku left, but those question marks seemed to have been put aside.

However, after losing their home group stage opener to Real Madrid, Inter cannot afford another road loss in Kiev on Tuesday.

Shakhtar Donetsk revamped and improved

This time around, Shakhtar will have a squad in great shape because when they first met last season, Shakhtar had seven starters due to a COVID outbreak and were still holding Inter to a 0-0 draw at Kiev.

They’re also an improved Shakhtar squad as they spent money during the transfer window bringing in Pedrinho, who is a talented winger from Benfica, Marlon, who has been Sassuolo’s center-back in recent years, and Lassina. Traoré from Ajax, who is another talented winger.

Shakhtar lost their opener to FC Sheriff which is concerning, but since that loss they have achieved two resounding Ukrainian Premier League victories, beating Mariupol and Veres by a combined score of 9-1.

Moreover, the expected goal battle was Sheriff 1.04 v Shakhtar 0.85, Shakhtar had 86% of the possession and Shakhtar had 40 touches in the penalty area, against 16 for Sheriff. So I think we’ll see a much more improved performance on Tuesday. at home.

Inter seeks to continue hot start

After losing his manager Antonio Conte, his best striker Romelu Lukaku, who scored 30 goals and a rate of 0.73 xG per 90 minutes, and his star right winger Achraf Hakimi, it looked like Inter were heading for a downward spiral. Inter have appeared to prove the skeptics wrong so far this season, at least domestically.

Inter are undefeated in their opening six games with a +7.13 xGD, which is very impressive given the circumstances. However, they didn’t exactly play the row of murderers, as they only faced one club that was in the top-eight last season.

Moreover, Inter could have tired legs as this Champions League meeting draws near, this is their sixth game in the last 17 days. On top of all that, it takes over 1,000 miles to get to Kiev, and it will be below 50 degrees, which is a lot colder than what Inter are used to.

Analysis and selection of bets

I only have Inter projected as a +122 favorite, so I think there’s some value on Shakhtar to get a result of this game, and I’ll take their +1 to -110 odds spread (DraftKings ) and I would play it until -130.

To take: Shakhtar +1 (-110)