France vs Turkey Predictions

France play host to Turkey on Monday evening, as they look to go top of Group H. The sides are currently level on 18 points after both winning by a goal to nil on Friday evening, but it is Turkey that have the slight upper hand thanks to a positive head-to-head record.

It’s not exactly been a struggle for France during qualification, though given that they’re the world champions, Didier Deschamps men may have expected to be out in front by the time match-day eight came around. That said, barring their defeat in the reverse of this fixture, they’ve won 100% of their games in Group H.

From an attacking point of view, Les Bleus have done well. They’ve scored an abundance of goals, notching 20 in seven matches, five of which they’ve scored in at least twice. At the other end of the pitch, they’ve not always sparkled. Turkey, Moldova and Albania have all breached the French rear-guard, but overall their attacking strengths have far outweighed any defensive weaknesses.

The worry for the French ahead of this match is that their worst performance of the campaign came against the Turks. Deschamps’ men were outplayed in all areas on that occasion. Not only did they concede twice without replying but they registered just four shots, none of which hit the target. They also conceded 11 shots, six of which tested the now injured Hugo Lloris. The reverse fixture also saw Turkey create 1.49 expected goals to France’s 0.3. It’s easy to see that Les Bleus will need to play much better when the teams meet in Paris on Monday evening.

Aside from delivering a dominant performance against France in Istanbul, Turkey have twice beaten Moldova and Albania, while they also trounced Andorra. It is hard to get excited about wins against minnows but beating Albania both home and away is no mean feat.

In the final third, the Turks aren’t quite as menacing as the French, who’ve scored an extra five goals despite playing the same number of games, but they have looked sturdier than Monday’s opponents at the back. A 2-1 away defeat against Iceland, their only loss of the campaign, is the only time that Turkey have conceded in Group H. Six clean sheets in seven matches is hugely impressive.

France come into this game as long odds-on favourites, which seems excessive. Now that they’re back in Paris, it is unreasonable to expect Les Bleus to be anywhere near as poor as they were in the reverse fixture, but the current odds suggest that it will be something of a walk in the park for Deschamps men, which based on everything we’ve seen in Group H so far, isn’t easy to agree with.

At the prices, ‘Turkey +1.25 Asian Handicap’, which yields a half win in the event of a single-goal France victory and a full win in the event of a draw or a Turkish victory, is very appealing. Frankly, the visitors, who’ve come across as a sturdy, well-organised unit since this campaign began, look to stand a better chance of frustrating their hosts than the prices would have us believe.