Gimnasia LP vs Boca Juniors Predictions

Saturday’s Superliga Argentina action sees Gimnasia de la Plata doing battle with Boca Juniors. The visitors arrive as big favourites to claim the 3 points, despite being set to make a host of changes.

Hosts Gimnasia will be hopeful of causing an upset nonetheless, and could really do with a win in their current predicament. El Lobo were very poor last time out away at Velez, losing 1-0 after a shot-shy display and said result keeps them involved in the relegation scrap, currently stationed 7 points above the drop zone on the average points table.

All things considered, Gimnasia’s start to the season has been decent enough, considering their 11 point haul from 9 matches is more than all of their relegation rivals have collected, but Pedro Troglio’s men cannot afford to take their foot off the gas. Confidence will be fairly high in home ranks coming into this one, after beating Boca in the cup last month, but there’s no doubting the hosts face a huge challenge. Especially with Boca coming into the match on a real high, after planting one foot in the final of the Copa Libertadores with a 2-0 win over Palmeiras in midweek. With the return leg of said semi-final tie coming on Thursday, boss Guillermo Barros Schelotto is set to rest his usual starters for the trip to La Plata.

The visitors will still be gunning for maximum points however, as they’re already 5 points behind leaders Racing and cannot afford to fall even further behind. With undoubtedly the strongest squad in the country, whatever team is fielded will be an extremely strong one and having plunged home an average of 2 goals a game over their last 4 away games, it will also be a potent one that is capable of threatening on enemy territory.

Ultimately, in normal circumstances, Boca would be at far shorter odds to win the match and whilst the changes they are going to make is undoubtedly a factor, the bookmakers look to have severely underestimated the depth in the champion’s squad and thus, good value can be found in this fixture.

We really like the look of backing Boca on the Draw No Bet line and at a generous price, that’s where our money is going. Man for man, Boca are a far stronger outfit than Gimnasia and with the hosts having scored an average of just 0.66 goals a game over their last 6 matches, at worst the visitors shouldn’t lose the match, but we think they’ll edge it by a 1-0 margin.