Red Bull Salzburg vs RB Leipzig Predictions

Salzburg have made a great start to their Europa League group, winning all 4 of their group games so far this campaign, a feat only Dinamo Zagreb and Chelsea have matched so far. They are already guaranteed to be through to the knockout stages of the competition and top spot looks secured too.

RB Leipzig have under performed by their standard so far in the group stages, however they still have a good chance of progressing to the knock-out stages. They have picked up 6 points from their opening 4 games and sit level with Celtic, although they travel to Norway to face pointless Rosenborg so a win here is crucial for the German side.

Salzburg are on fire this season, they are a massive 12 points clear in their domestic league after just 15 games and head into this game on the back of 5 consecutive wins and are unbeaten in their last 32 games in all competitions. They have been flawless in their Europa League group too, picking up the perfect 12 points, beating Rosenborg 3-0 and 5-2, Celtic 3-0 and Thursday’s opponents RB Leipzig 3-2 in Germany.

RB Leipzig have picked up 2 wins out of 4 in the group stages after winning 3-1 against Rosenborg and 2-0 to Celtic. However, they did lose the reverse 2-1 to Celtic and were beaten on the opening game week 3-2 by Salzburg at home. With their last group stage game at home to Rosenborg, Leipzig will fancy progressing to the knockout stages should they get a positive result here on Thursday.

Salzburg have turned their home stadium into a bit of a fortress of late in the Europa League, they are unbeaten in 11 home games in the competition winning 9 of them. They have dispatched some high quality sides in that run too, beating Marseille twice, Lazio 4-1, Real Sociedad, and Schalke. They are not afraid of beating the big boys at home and with their league campaign going so well, we feel they will want to put on a show here.

RB Leipzig have only played 8 away games in the competition, and they have won just 2 of those, both 3-1 against Napoli and Rosenborg respectively. They have drawn some suspect games against lesser sides like Hacken, Uni Craoiva and Zorya and were comfortably dispatched 5-2 by Marseille.

The one thing both sides have going for them is the ability of scoring goals, Salzburg have averaged 4.5 goals per game in the group stages whilst Leipzig have averaged 2 goals a game. The bookmakers are expecting an away victory and we really struggle to see why, they are the better side on paper, however Salzburg are a different animal on home soil whilst Leipzing have struggled to beat teams far worse than Salzburg away from home. The value is all on the home side here and over 1.5 team goals is priced very nicely at over even money and that’s where we stick our main bet here. On the correct score front we can see another goal fest and would not be surprised to see it go down the same line as the first meeting, so we shall also be backing Salzburg to win 3-2 at a huge price here.