Europa League – The Race to Dublin is On …

Europa League – The Race to Dublin is On …
We are down to the last 16 and anyone could lift the trophy in May – Liverpool, Manchester City and Rangers all face tricky away leg ties. 
Braga v Liverpool  – 18.00
Liverpool have a hard game against Braga, who knocked Celtic out of the Champions League in August. The Portuguese side should not be taken lightly, despite being sixth in their national league and having half the number of points of leaders Porto.
The English club are coming into the tie on a high after beating fierce rivals Manchester united at the weekend, they will have to do without skipper Steven Gerrard. On a positive note, record signing Andy Carroll will make an appearance having come on as substitute on Sunday.
Liverpool have generous odds of 13/8 to win, whilst it will be a hard game they are very attractive odds. A draw is 11/5 and a home win is 21/10.  If you want to back Carroll to open the scoring then you can get 11/2 and Sunday’s hat-trick hero is 13/2 to find the net first. Dynamo Kiev v Manchester City – 20.05 City are still fighting for three competitions but face a hard battle tonight as they take on Dynamo Kiev, the Manchester club are still favourites to lift the trophy (41/10) but are 2s to win in the Ukraine.
Shaun Wright-Phillips is likely to enjoy as rare start having regained fitness after a back injury. Midfielder Nigel de Jong is hoping to get his place back after missing just over a month out injured with an ankle problem.
It is hard to see an away win, but a draw at 9/4 is worth backing. One player worth betting on to score first is ex-Chelsea striker Andriy Shevchenko who is 7s, he has scored four goals in nine games so far in this competition.
PSV Eindhoven v Rangers – 20.05
It is hard to see Rangers qualifying from this tie but then nobody expected Fulham to reach the Final last season. The Glasgow club are 13/2 to shock the Dutch side but the sensible money would be on taking advantage of 8/15 on a home win. 
Excellent news for Rangers is that Kyle Lafferty and Vladimir Weiss have travelled with the squad, having both missed the last two games. Nikica Jelavic is ineligible as he is cup-tied whilst Sasa Papac, Kirk Broadfoot, Lee McCulloch, Steven Naismith and Jamie Ness are all injured.
Ola Toivonen and Marcus Berg are both favourites to opening the scoring at 9/2, it is likely to be the Dutch who score first but hard to call who.
Best of the Rest
Bayer Leverkusen are currently second in the German league and will be confident of beating Spanish side Villarreal, the away side have Giuseppe Rossi but at evens a home win should be backed.
The tie of the round sees second favourites Porto travel to Russia to take on CSKA Moscow, the home side are an incredible 2s to win. The Portuguese are an excellent side but with the Russian weather a home win is the way forward.