FC Astana vs Baumit Jablonec Predictions

After three matches, Astana find themselves top of Group K and that’s exactly where they’ll want to be after match-day four. Having drawn 1-1 away in Poland, the hosts ought to fancy their chances of coming out on top when they welcome Jablonec to Astana Arena on Thursday evening.

Realistically, Astana have made a pleasing start to life in Group K. If you’d offered them five points after three games before the competition begun, they would’ve almost certainly taken it, though the job is far from done, so it’s important that Thursday’s hosts don’t get too caught up in what they’ve already achieved.

From a performance point of view, the Kazakh side have acquitted themselves well. They’ve not exactly dazzled, but they’ve been both efficient and effective at both ends of the pitch. Going forward, they’ve not exactly dominated games, but they’ve not given a lot away, which means that the goals they have scored have counted.

When the teams met a fortnight ago, there wasn’t much between them, though having kept their opponents quiet away from home, giving up just 0.85 expected goals and coming out with a marginal expected goals supremacy of +0.11, Astana should be backing themselves to do well in this fixture.

As for the visitors, well Jablonec aren’t in such a fortunate position. The Czech outfit are yet to win in Group K, though they’ve only lost once, while they weren’t exactly outplayed by Astana last week, even if they were marginally the worse team.

However, in their previous away match, the visitors defended poorly, as they conceded twice against Rennes and gave up 1.78 expected goals. Astana are perhaps less threatening offensively than the French outfit, though the visitors will need to do better.

In truth, this looks to be a good opportunity for the hosts. Overall, they’ve looked the sturdier of the two sides, while their efforts when beating Rennes 2-0 at this venue were far more impressive than when the visitors faced the same opponent in France. That said, Astana shouldn’t be backed to run away with proceedings.

At the prices, ‘Astana to Win & Under 3.5 Goals’ stands out. What has happened in the group so far tells us that Astana should have enough about them to edge this on home soil, though with neither being particularly great going forward and with both likely to adopt a more cautious approach, a lack of goals is anticipated.