Malta vs Norway Predictions

Malta welcome Norway to Ta’Qali National Stadium on Monday evening, as they look to avoid defeat for the first time in nine matches. After winning the reverse fixture, Norway will be looking for another three points.

Unsurprisingly, Malta have found this qualification campaign tremendously hard. The minnows have earned just one victory, which came against fellow strugglers Faroe Islands, while they’ve now lost eight on the bounce.

Monday’s hosts have rarely got involved going forward, scoring in just one out of nine. They’ve not found the net since scoring twice against Faroe Islands on match-day one. In addition to struggling massively in the final third, Malta have failed miserably in their attempts to keep teams quiet, conceding 25 goals, keeping zero clean sheets.

Monday’s visitors have done markedly better than their opponents, but ultimately, they too have failed. Norway’s chances of qualifying for EURO 2020 are now much slimmer. They did get the job done on Friday evening, but because of results elsewhere, the Norwegians are now not able to finish in the top two, as they’re four points behind the Swedes with just one game to go. They may end up going into the play-offs as one of the best losers, but that is yet to be confirmed.

Where the Norwegians have come unstuck in qualifying is in games against the better teams, as they’ve won none of their six matches against Spain, Sweden and Romania. They only lost one out of six against such teams, which is far from displeasing, but by not beating any of those rivals, they simply failed to put the required number of points on the board.

In relation to this match, Norway have done a reasonable job against the minnows, beating Faroe Islands 2-0 and 4-0, while they won the reverse of this fixture by two goals to nil. Three wins and no goals conceded is respectable, though given the level of opposition, the Norwegians probably should have done better offensively when facing the no-hopers.

In the betting, ‘Under 3.5 Goals’ appeals. Malta’s attacking threat has been virtually non-existent during qualification. Even at home, the only team they’ve notched against is Faroe Islands. Defensively, they struggled against both Romania and Sweden, conceding four on both occasions, but they did restrict the Spanish to only two goals. Against a Norwegian outfit that has been a bit underwhelming, the hosts could quite easily keep the score respectable, After all, Norway have only scored more than once in one out of their four away games, they’re yet to score more than twice, despite facing a side of Faroe Islands’ quality, while each of their four travelling games have seen less than four goals go in. Moreover, they only managed to notch twice when hosting Malta back in September.

‘Correct Score’ punters are pointed towards a 2-0 win for the visitors. At the end of the day, Norway have the quality to win this match, but given that they will be without two of their brightest attacking players (Haland and Odegaard) and have won two of their three matches against Group F’s bottom two by two goals to nil, a 2-0 win for the visitors appeals. Malta’s lack of goals also makes a visiting clean sheet appeal.