Roma vs Astra Predictions & Betting Tips, Match Previews

Roma have made a pretty poor start to the new season overall. Their Serie A form hasn’t been bad, with three wins, a draw, and two defeats putting them 4th in the table, but they will have been hoping for better in Europe.

They were drawn against Porto in the Champions League Playoff round, and whilst it was a difficult fixture, the Serie A giants should have been able to navigate it. They certainly looked like they would do so when they drew 1-1 in Portugal, but a complete meltdown at home saw them receive two red cards and lose 3-0 to send them into the Europa League.

It didn’t start much better there either, with them having to settle for a 1-1 draw at Viktoria Plzen in their group opener. This came just before a 1-0 loss to Fiorentina in Serie A. They did bounce back with a 4-0 thrashing of Crotone, but Sunday saw them lose 3-1 at Torino to make it one win from their last four outings.

Astra haven’t done particularly well in the Romanian Liga I. They have won just three of their opening ten matches, losing five times and drawing the other two. Two of these victories have come in their last two matches, so they could be on the verge of turning it around.

In Europe they were knocked out of the Champions League qualifiers by Copenhagen, and amidst their horrendous start to the domestic season they managed to beat West Ham 2-1 on aggregate in the Europa League playoffs, sending the Londoners out of Europe for the second season in a row.

Things didn’t go so well for Astra in their group opener as Austria Wien beat them 3-2 in Romania to leave Astra bottom of the group and wasting one of their best chances of taking some points in this group stage campaign.

Astra are massive underdogs here, and it’s understandable why. They aren’t in the best of form and have a severe deficit in quality on their opponents. However, Roma are missing four of their defenders through injury and both Emerson and Daniele De Rossi, two more defensive figures, are suspended. They have only kept two clean sheets in their nine competitive games this season as well, and Astra have found the net in eight of their last ten matches.

Astra have also scored in 11 of their 13 Europa League away days, so backing them to get on the score-sheet looks a good bet. I do think Roma have the quality to get the win though, so I’m going for a Roma Win and Both Teams to Score at 7/4 along with a 2-1 correct score prediction at 15/2.