Sunday - Best Bets and analysis
Hungary vs Ireland
Both teams to score: Yes at 2.2
• Ireland need to win here. They sit one point behind Hungary with a worse goal difference, so their game plan has to involve them scoring.
• Confidence should be sky-high after the Portugal win. It’s the biggest result Ireland have had over a top opponent since beating Italy at Euro 2016.
• Nothing is expected of Ireland here, which takes the pressure off and should help them.
• Hungary are not a side to trust defensively. They have allowed 1.72 xGA per 90 in these qualifiers and conceded twice, giving up 2.85 xGA and 19 shots the last time they played Ireland. That match did include a second half red card.
• Filtering all their home games across all competitions, including friendlies, over the last 12 months, they have kept only one clean sheet at home and that was against Armenia.
• Ireland have scored in six of their last seven competitive games, the only blank coming away to Portugal.
• Under Hallgrímsson, Ireland have not kept a clean sheet on the road and are likely to concede again.
• At the current line and with what’s at stake, BTTS looks decent value.
Double:
Serbia + Israel to win at 1.9 - 2 units
• Serbia are already eliminated but should still be motivated to deliver a strong performance under their new coach after a poor qualification campaign.
• Against Latvia they should be comfortable. The last meeting in Riga finished 1-0 with an xG split of 2.00 to 0.59, and Serbia should be capable of improving on that at home.
• Serbia have badly undershot their xG at home over the last year. They have generated 1.73 xG per 90 but scored only 1.00 per 90, and that sample included Denmark, Austria, England and Albania. The underlying numbers remain encouraging.
• Latvia have a -1.75 xG difference from their away matches and struggle to create anything on the road. Even against Andorra they produced just 0.36 xG. This continues a long trend across their previous Euro qualification phase and their Nations League campaigns.
• Israel are added here because Moldova have declined and remain poor travellers. In their last 13 away World Cup qualifiers they have lost 11 and drawn 2, against Georgia and Estonia. Their Euro qualification record on the road tells the same story.
• Israel beat Moldova 4-0 away with a 2.64 to 0.99 xG split and also brushed aside Estonia, the other weak side in the group, with strong underlying numbers.
• Only Gibraltar and San Marino have been worse than Moldova this campaign on xGA, and on goals conceded they have actually been worse than Gibraltar and Liechtenstein.