Bologna vs Lille Prediction: Another bore home draw for I Rossoblu

The pressure is well and truly on Bologna ahead of their Uefa Champions League clash against Lille OSC on Wednesday (20:00, TNT Sports 8). The Italian side have failed to win any of their first four league phase games and look likely to crash out of Europe early next year unless they can string a few victories together, starting this week.

Meanwhile, their opponents at the Stadio Renato Dall'Ara, Lille, look well-placed to at least qualify for a two-legged knock-out phase play-off after taking seven points from 12 available so far. Read on for my Bologna vs Lille prediction, complete with all the latest team news and match odds.

Team News

Swiss stars Dan Ndoye and Michel Aebischer are both missing for Wednesday's hosts, who are also without Nicolo Cambiaghi and Oussama El Azzouzi.

First-choice goalkeeper Lukasz Skorupski sat out Bologna's 3-0 defeat at Lazio on Sunday and is a doubt for this midweek match, meaning Federico Ravaglia may have to deputise between the sticks once again.

Martin Erlic and Lewis Ferguson are back in contention, however, with both unused substitutes at the Stadio Olimpico. Erlic hadn't been in a Bologna squad since playing the duration of a goalless draw with Parma on October 6, while Ferguson only played his first minutes of the season in the 1-0 win over Lecce on November 2. He played agains three days later in the 1-0 home defeat to Monaco in the Champions League but has remained on the bench for Bologna's past two matches, the first of which was a 3-2 win over AS Roma in the Italian capital.

Thijs Dallinga has yet to get off the mark for I Rossoblu since joining from Toulouse in the summer but the Dutch forward is an option from the start on Wednesday, possibly in place of Argentine striker Santiago Castro.

Stefan Posch, Kacper Urbanski, Samuel Iling Jr. and Giovanni Fabbian are also in contention to start against Lille.

Football Odds

The visitors are without five first-team players for their midweek trip to Italy. Angel Gomes, Samuel Umtiti, Nabil Bentaleb, Tiago Santos and Ethan Mbappe are all unavailable for selection by head coach Bruno Genesio, who could still name an unchanged starting XI from Sunday's 1-0 victory over Stade Rennais.

Edon Zhegrova struck the only goal of that game and is expected to play a key part in proceedings on Wednesday having scored in the 3-1 win over Atletico Madrid on October 23 and assisted Jonathan David's strike in the 1-1 draw with Juventus last time out in the competition.

Bologna vs Lille Odds

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Bologna are 7/5 to scoop three points for the first time in the Champions League, giving the Italian side an implied win probability of 41.7%, while Lille are 2/1, or a 33.3% chance, to chalk up a second away victory of the league phase.

The draw is priced at 9/4, both teams to score at 4/5, and over 2.5 total goals at 1/1.

David (7/4) heads the anytime goalscorer market followed by Bologna trio Dallinga (21/10), Castro and Riccardo Orsolini (both 5/2).

Match Result - Draw @ 9/4

This is a difficult game to call with Bologna starting to enter 'must-win' territory and Lille wondering whether just avoiding defeat would be sufficient on Wednesday with home contests against Sturm Graz and Feyenoord still to come.

Bologna endured a difficult start to the season following the departure of head coach Thiago Motta to Juventus. Vincenzo Italiano has stepped into big shoes at the Renato Dall'Ara and felt the weight of expectation immediately, failing to win any of his first five matches in charge. However, the former Fiorentina boss did oversee three straight Serie A wins before I Rossoblu succumbed to defeat in Rome on Sunday, so there have been notable signs of improvement.

Claiming a first success in the Champions League is next on the agenda, and that's vital if they are to give themselves a realistic chance of finishing in the top 24, particularly with two trips to Lisbon, to face Benfica and Sporting, still to come.

They began their league phase campaign with a goalless draw at home to Shakhtar Donetsk but then suffered back-to-back 2-0 defeats in England at Liverpool and Aston Villa before losing 1-0 in Italy to AS Monaco last time out.

Lille, meanwhile, suffered a 2-0 defeat to Sporting in Portugal in their opening game but are unbeaten since, beating Real Madrid 1-0 at home and Atletico Madrid 3-1 away before settling for a 1-1 draw with Juventus earlier this month. A top-eight finish is still well within their grasp but they might need to win three of their four remaining games or pick up at least eight points to avoid a play-off place, which would still be a good achievement for the French side.

Converting draws into wins has been an issue for Les Douges this month as they kicked off November with three stalemates, drawing 1-1 with Lyon and Juventus before playing out a 2-2 with OGC Nice. They managed to get all three points on Sunday as they edged out Stade Rennais 1-0 but their matches do tend to be close run things.

Lille have been held to a stalemate five times this season, all in their last 11 games, and two of those have come away from home.

Bologna can beat that tally as they have drawn seven times this term - all in their first 10 term outings. They've won three and lost three of their last six but I think we could see a return to 'normality' for I Rossoblu, who have drawn five of their seven home games, with Lille taking a respectable point back to France in their bid for the knockouts.

First Half Total Goals 2-Way - Under 0.5 @ 13/8

First-half strikes have been hard to come by in Bologna games this season, with 11 scored for either team in their 16 season outings so far. Half (eight) of those contests have failed to see a single goal scored before the interval, including Sunday's defeat at Lazio and three of their four Champions League matches - the 2-0 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield on October 2, when Alexis Mac Allister struck in the 11th minute proving to be the outlier.

Lile, meanwhile, have seen exactly one first-half goal scored in eight of their last nine games - the other was a goalless draw at Monaco on October 18, when of course there was no first-half strike.

Six of Bologna's seven home matches this season have failed to see a first-half goal, while three of Lille's away outings have seen opening-half clean sheets for both teams.

With Bologna and Lille both proving tough to break down in the opening stages, under 0.5 first-half total goals appeals on Wednesday at 13/8.

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