Montenegro vs Kazakhstan Predictions & Betting Tips, Match Previews

Montenegro are having a bit of a difficult time of things recently. They opened their World Cup qualification campaign with a fairly respectable 1-1 draw away from home, but this still extended their winless streak to seven games in all competitions.

This includes a failure to beat Belarus at home and a defeat to Macedonia, and they have only won two of their last 15 matches across the board. This sort of form resulted in them finishing 4th in their Euro 2016 qualification group, seven points adrift of the playoff spot that Sweden occupied. They have little hope of making it to Russia in two years time either, with them facing the task of outperforming Poland, Romania, and Denmark for the one automatic qualification spot and the one potential playoff position.

Montenegro aren’t much better at home either. They have only won three of their last 11 games on home turf, with that including a 5-2 thrashing at the hands of Moldova. They have also lost to Ukraine, Russia, and Austria and failed to beat the likes of Belarus.

Kazakhstan are actually in a pretty decent spell of form at the moment as well. They opened World Cup qualification with an excellent 2-2 draw at home to group favourites Poland. This was despite going two goals down in the first half, with Sergey Khizhnichenko bagging two goals in under ten minutes to bring them back level in the second half.

Realistically they have no chance of challenging for qualification, but they will be hoping to improve on their six point tally from the Euro 2016 qualifiers. Home matches against the likes of Armenia and Montenegro provide a lot of hope for them to do this.

This draw against Poland made it two draws, three wins, and just one defeat in their last six matches. The competition hasn’t been great in these games, but it’s still a very good spell of form for them.

Away from home things are even better for Kazakhstan. They have only lost two of their last nine away days and have won three times. This includes draws against Russia and Iceland and victories against Latvian, Azerbaijan, and China.

Azerbaijan have kept a clean sheet in five of these nine matches, and considering Montenegro have struggled going forward, I think the visitors have a real chance on Saturday. Odds of 6/5 for a Kazakhstan Win or Draw Double Chance look excellent value too, so I’m backing that along with a 1-1 correct score prediction at 6/1.