FK Krasnodar vs Standard Liege Predictions

Despite going a goal behind when hosting Krasnodar, St. Liege came out on match-day three with all three points courtesy of a late winner. Having lost on match-day one, that victory was a much-needed one, but will it have given the Belgians the confidence to go to Russia and get a positive result?

After losing in Belgium, Thursday’s hosts will surely be chomping at the bit to go up against Liege again. In the reverse fixture, the Russians were easily the better team; they created plenty, gave away very little and were very unfortunate not to take all three points, so taking zero was a real blow. However, all is not lost. If they can dominate on their own patch, then Liege will struggle to cope.

In their only previous home match in Group J, Krasnodar got the better of Sevilla, who managed to give Liege a real battering when hosting the Belgians in Andalusia. That performance/result bodes well for the hosts, who surely only need a repeat of their performance in Liege to come out on top.

As things stand, Liege have six points, so it would be easy to assume that they’ve done well, though in all honesty, it’s surprising that the Belgian side have been able to accumulate such a tally. They were outclassed all ends up against Sevilla on match-day one and, from a performance point of view, they’re yet to really improve. Turkish side Akhisar did enough to beat Michel Preud’homme’s men on match-day two, while Liege were outdone by the Russians last time out, as the fact that Krasnodar came out of the game with an expected goal supremacy of +2.0 suggests.

From a defensive point of view, Liege have looked very, very weak. They’ve conceded seven goals in three games, are yet to keep a clean sheet and are conceding an average of 2.64 expected goals. It wouldn’t be so bad if they were doing plenty in the offensive third, though they’ve not been good value for the goals that they’ve scored and have generally looked non-threatening, as their average of 0.72 expected goals for tells us.

Quite frankly, this is a gilt-edged opportunity for the hosts and they’re backed to take it with both hands. Against a Liege side that has looked awful at the back in conceding an average of 2.64 expected goals in the Europa League this season, backing ‘Krasnodar to Win’ and ‘Krasnodar to Score Over 1.5 Goals’ is the way to go.