Azerbaijan vs Slovakia Predictions

• Slovakia have won three of their last five away games, all without conceding.
• Azerbaijan have lost seven of their last nine games and five of their last six at home.
• Azerbaijan have failed to score in their last four contests.

Slovakia sacked coach in wake of Kazakhstan kicking

Rudderless Slovakia will make the lengthy trek to Azerbaijan without a head coach in place, but they can still justify their odds-on quote against a team that look completely lost at the moment. The Slovakia federation sacked Stefan Tarkovic in the wake of this week’s 1-0 home humbling at the hands of Kazakhstan – just the latest in a string of embarrassing results for the Falcons.

However shocking it was to see a nation that can call upon the likes of Milan Skriniar fall to a team ranked as low as 125th on Fifa’s rankings, it shouldn’t put backers off the visitors at 4/5 in Baku. Kazakhstan are on the rise and have now won four of their last five internationals.

Azerbaijan, although ranked just below them, have lost seven of their last nine games and five of their last six at home. Gianni De Biasi’s men are largely home-based players, many from champion side Qarabag, but there are a few overseas talents such as Tondela’s Renat Dadashov and Dinamo Zagreb’s Mahir Emreli.

Azerbaijan have a major scoring problem

Unfortunately for the Italian coach, they don’t seem to hit it off as a front pairing and that is partially why Azerbaijan have failed to score in their last four games. Slovakia, therefore, might need only one goal to secure victory on Friday and, even with their lacklustre forward line, they should be able to find a way – as they did against Belarus last week.

Slovakia have won three of their last five away games and all of those were accompanied by a clean sheet, so we believe it is a risk worth taking to back the visitors to win to nil on Friday. A 1-0 success would appear to be the most likely outcome to us as Azerbaijan have shipped only four goals in their last four internationals.