QUALIFYING for Euro 2020 continues on Saturday and Tom Love (@TomLove_18) is on-hand to unearths his favourite fancies.
Russia v Belgium | Saturday 16th November 2019, 17:00 | Sky Sports
These two have runaway with Group I in this qualifying campaign. Belgium have been unstoppable with eight wins from eight whereas Russia have kept possible challengers for second place away with third-placed Cyprus a whole 11 points behind the 2018 World Cup hosts.
All this means it’s a fight for top spot, but even if the hosts win here they’re likely to still finish second on goal difference at least. With little on the line I expect both sides to express themselves and the 5/6 (Bet Victor) on Over 2.5 Goals looks more than fair.
Seven of the last nine Belgium games has seen Overs cop; they’ve won and bagged twice or more in all of those games too. Russia have won their last seven, scoring 26 goals in the process. Six of Russia’s past eight have broken the Over 2.5 Goals barrier, including their reverse match in Brussels.
The hosts have a few different threats that we’ve seen at the World Cup in man mountain Artum Dzubya, who has nine goals to his name already, classy midfielder Aleksander Golovin and the enigmatic Denis Cheryshev who certainly saves his best performances for the national team.
On the other side, the Red Devils have a wealth of attacking talent with Kevin De Bruyne, Eden Hazard, Dries Mertens and Michy Batshuayi. Any mistakes they will punish, but Russia with home advantage will not be expected to sit back which means we could see goals at both ends in a potentially fun encounter.
Germany v Belarus | Saturday 16th November 2019, 19:45 | Sky Sports
The international break naturally throws up games between unmatched teams and therefore skinny prices. When this is the case I tend to delve into the correct score markets to eke out some value as I think the amount of wins ‘to nil’ are significantly more prevalent on the international scene given the defensive mentality drilled into the majority of minnows.
The big guns are largely on a hiding to nothing in these kind of fixtures, they have to win by three or four goals to avoid any kind of criticism but it does give possible nearly men to put their name in the hat for the starting line-up as the Euros approach.
Germany have called up a lot of exciting forward players, most of them under young. Kai Havertz had a superb season last term and is such a promising player for his age, Serge Gnabry picked up the Player of the Year award at Bayern Munich last term and has once again had a positive impact this time around.
Havertz’s good pal Julian Brandt has started to come into to his own more recently whereas Freiburg frontman Luca Waldschmidt did enough for the U21’s in the summer to catch Joachim Low’s eye.
Die Mannschaft are joint top of Group C with rivals Holland. Northern Ireland are once again punching above their weight and still remain with a sniff of qualification just three points behind the pair. Low would’ve hoped to have a more simple route through to qualification but it does mean they have to win this and they should do comfortably so against a Belarus side who are not up to much.
The White Wings have garnered just four points in their campaign and all of those were against Estonia. They even failed to score in Minsk against the Balkan small timers which shows their struggles in front of goal. Take out the 2-1 win in Tallinn and they’ve scored just twice in seven qualifiers.
The Germans should be winning this with a clean sheet but I expect them to run out victors comfortably and will Dutch the 4-0 (MoPlay) and 5-0 (BetVictor) correct scores at 6/1 and 9/1 respectively.
If you’re not familiar with the term Dutching, it’s basically splitting our stakes accordingly on two bets. For instance, if you have a £20 total stake, £11.76 on the 6/1 and £8.24 on the 9/1 would see a profit of £62.35. There are various Dutching calculators online to assist with this if you need them.
Austria v North Macedonia | Saturday 16th November 2019, 19:45 | Sky Sports
Austria can secure their place in the Euros with a win at home to third-placed North Macedonia. In reality a draw would all but see Das Team make the finals but their opposition simply has to win to have any chance of getting through.
The Crveni Risovi have fought admirably in a pretty well matched group, they currently have 11 points to their name, interestingly the same amount of points as Slovenia and Israel. With Poland likely to top the group and Austria on 16 points it looks like all three will fall short and the trio will all be going for the win this Saturday out of necessity.
Austria are as short as 2/9 to win this one and with home advantage and a superior squad they should do so. In-form Leipzig winger Marcel Sabitzer could be of interest at 7/5 (Betfair) to notch anytime, he’s bagged in each of his last four for RB.
It’s been Wolfsburg midfielder Xaver Schlager who has been the breakthrough star for Das Team this qualifying campaign. There’s a threat from full-back too with Stefan Lainer and David Alaba getting involved in attacks.
At some point in the game at least the visitors have to come out and attack and that will leave gaps for the hosts to exploit. Given the group dynamics we should see goals and therefore I’ll combine the home win and Over 2.5 goals to garner a 5/6 shot with Boylesports.
Igor Angelovski’s charges face a tough challenge to win this one but they do have attacking threats in Enis Bardhi, Ezgjan Alioski, Aleksander Trajovski, Eljif Elmas and Ilija Nestrorovski. They could score here and the 21/10 on a home win and Both Teams To Score also appeals but we get the comfy win to nil onside here too.
Best Bets
Russia v Belgium – Over 2.5 Goals (5/6 BetVictor)
Germany v Belarus – Germany to win 4-0 (6/1 MoPlay)
Germany v Belarus – Germany to win 5-0 (9/1 BetVictor)
Austria v North Macedonia – Austria to win and Over 2.5 Goals (5/6 Boylesports)
