Football betting analyst Mark O’Haire picks out his favourite three fancies from across the continent this week with action in Spain, Germany and Turkey taking centre-stage.
It was a terrific round of midweek football from home and away this week. Goals were prolific across cup competitions in England, Germany and France, whilst there were plenty of intriguing plots developing during league encounters in Italy and Spain.
With Champions League and Europa League football again on the horizon, the action continues to come thick and fast, and I believe I’ve found a few value angles from across the continent on what looks to be a trappy card on more local shores.
At the time of writing, Fran Escriba is on the brink of the sack as Celta Vigo head coach. The struggling Galicians followed up last weekend’s loss at home to Real Sociedad with a heartbreaking stoppage-time reverse at Real Betis on Wednesday night, a pair of results that leave the Balaidos boys with only two triumphs from 11 La Liga outings this term.
Celta are marooned in the relegation zone and have managed only three goals in their past eight encounters. The club’s hierarchy have demanded a more attack-minded style from Escriba but the Vigo side have toiled in the final-third, firing in the second-fewest attempts from inside the penalty box and creating very little from open play.
The Galicians performance data points towards a bottom-three position, making the hosts again very opposable on Sunday. Getafe can be grabbed at 1.74 with a +0.25 start and that looks just the ticket with Los Azulones renowned for their organised, battle-hardened approach and safety-first attitude under workaholic head coach Jose Bordalas.
Getafe’s forward Angel Rodriguez celebrates after scoring during his side’s 3-1 win over Granada.
Getafe upset the odds to almost pinch a Champions League qualification place last term and many are surprised to see the Madrid minnows enter the 2019/20 campaign with their squad largely intact.
Los Azulones are one of the most streetwise sides in Europe; they may not win many prizes for aesthetics, but they get through the miles and rarely give their opponents a moment’s rest through sheer ferocity.
Remarkably, Bordalas’ boys have been beaten just 12 times since the beginning of last season with Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid accounting for seven of those defeats. Getafe remain a wonderfully resilient outfit and are well capable of picking up a positive result at out-of-sorts Celta, and are nicely priced to do so as underdogs.
In Turkey, Trabzonspor should justify their position as 1.74 favourites when Goztepe arrive on Saturday afternoon. The hosts picked up a last-minute point at Istanbul Basaksehir on Monday, which was great news for manager Unal Karaman whom has often been criticised for his team’s lack of resilience on the road during his 18-month stint with the club.
Trabzon now return home looking to enhance an already-impressive record at the Senol Gunes Stadium under Karaman. The Black Sea Storm have delivered 15 triumphs from 21 Super Lig matches here, scoring at least twice on 16 occasions, notching three or more goals in nine outings and winning by at least two goals in nine times in that 21-game sample.
Trabzonspor have been dynamite on home turf this season.
Karaman’s group come into this clash on the back of successive 4-1 home victories – the latter of which was against Besiktas – and Trabzonspor are also amongst the league’s leaders for shots, attempts on-target and open play goals with Jose Sosa, Alexander Sorloth and even Daniel Sturridge making plenty of positive impacts in the offensive third.
Goztepe pitch up following a 4-1 thrashing at home to Kasimpasa on Monday night, a result that led to head coach Tamer Tuna resigning. It leaves the visitors rudderless and leaderless before taking to the road once more, an area where Goz are notoriously terrible travellers having been beaten in 14 of their last 21 away days, failing to score in 11 contests.
Back the hosts to pick up maximum points.
Bayern Munich are ominously only a point off the top of the Bundesliga after nine rounds of action but Niko Kovac’s charges have been far from the well-oiled juggernaut we’ve come to expect from previous incarnation of the Bavarian giants. The 29-time champions have stuttered in recent weeks and now face a tricky test in Frankfurt on Saturday afternoon.
The Munich men have only beaten a two-goal handicap three times in domestic action this term and were far from fluent when dispatching lowly Union Berlin 2-1 at the Allianz Arena last week. Bayern followed that up by a sketchy late success against second-tier strugglers Bochum in the DFB Pokal in midweek, trailing in that tussle with just six minutes to play.
The 7-2 shellacking of Spurs has proven to be quite the anomaly and with defensive injuries ruling out centre-back lynchpin Niklas Sule, as well as Lucas Hernandez, Kovac has been forced into a recall of Jerome Boateng at the back. The injuries have meant Benjamin Pavard has slotted into the centre of defence and Joshua Kimmich forced to return to right-back.
Niko Kovac’s Bayern side have stuttered domestically in recent weeks
Eintracht Frankfurt were out-gunned at Borussia Monchengladbach last Sunday, although Die Adler remain a force to be reckoned with at their Commerzbank-Arena base, scoring in all bar three of 22 outings as hosts under Adi Hutter’s watch. Andre Silva, Bas Dost and Goncalo Paciencia have really impressed with mainstay Filip Kostic continuing his fine form.
Eintracht have W11-D6-L5 at home in the Bundesliga under Hutter and aren’t a million miles off Bayern in terms of the underlying performance data this season, suggesting they are capable of causing their guests problems this weekend. Odds of 7.50 on the upset appear overpriced and we can take advantage by grabbing Frankfurt +1.50 at kind 1.80 quotes.
The visitors have only kept their sheets clean twice in 2019/20 and have registered just four victories by a margin of two goals or more in 15 fixtures on their travels when conceding under Kovac.
If you anticipate Eintracht getting on the scoresheet as I do, then having the healthy handicap start onside is advised.
