Ilves vs HIFK Predictions

• Ilves have won their last four home Veikkausliiga matches
• HIFK have lost two of their four away Veikkausliiga games this season.
• Ilves have scored exactly three goals in three of their last four home league contests.

Hosts can have their way with hard-up HIFK

Wednesday’s visit of troubled HIFK offers Ilves another opportunity to showcase some of the good football they have been playing recently – and take another three points.

Toni Kallio’s side have won each of their last four at home, although it needed a 96th-minute winner from Petteri Pennanen to keep that sequence going against relegation-threatened Lahti last weekend. Their other two goals in a 3-2 win were long-range efforts that seemed to come through a crowd of statuesque bodies in or around the penalty area, so their xG numbers might be a bit low from that one.

However, Ilves are a team that have found scoring multiple goals at home pretty easy lately as three of their last four at Ratinan Stadion have seen them find a third goal. And when a team as low on confidence – and finances – as HIFK are next up then the chances of racking up more goals seem worth consideration.

Ilves in the habit of hitting three goals at home 

HIFK need € 140,000 by the end of June and half a million euros in the longer term to get the through the season. Willing investors are not exactly knocking their doors down and this sort of uncertainty usually affects the playing side soon enough.

The Reds are in the red financially and in terms of their goal difference for the campaign, which currently stands at -13 with just eight goals scored and 21 conceded in their ten Veikkausliiga matches to date. Now is not the time to be backing the visitors to turn things around and a Ilves win with at least three goals in the game looks a decent way in.

Take Ilves to run out 3-1 winners as the hosts have kept only one clean sheet in five at their own ground in 2022.

*To use the Live Streaming service you will need to be logged in and have a funded account or to have placed a bet in the last 24 hours.