St. Etienne vs Bastia Betting Tips

St. Etienne are gradually getting better. They suffered a disappointing opening weekend defeat to Toulouse, were then denied by a last minute Bordeaux equaliser, but managed to pull out a 1-0 victory at Lorient last weekend. Around all of that action, they’ve also played a couple of Europa League games, qualifying for the group stages of that competition.

St. Etienne are a young side and after a strong 2014-15 season, they’ve not started 2015-16 poorly. They have a good defensive set-up and keep the ball relatively well, but they’re not playing their best football in the final third, either in terms of creating quality chances or in finishing them off. This won’t be an easy contest for a squad that will surely have some tired legs.

After three games, Bastia find themselves tucked in just behind PSG in second place in Ligue 1. They’ve beaten Guingamp and Stade Rennais, while also picking up a draw against Lorient in their one away game.

Bastia have played good football, controlling the football well and creating good chances. It’s worth noting that Lorient controlled a good portion of that game. Bastia won their last match against St. Etienne 1-0, but their recent record against ASSE hasn’t been good, they’ve won just one of their last nine games overall (with one draw).

Three Reasons for Betting Tips

1. Bastia’s form

We’ll take Bastia to keep up their strong form to start the season. We’ll trust in their possession statistics and the way in which they have been defending. They’ll know that they are making the trip to face St. Etienne at about the right time too.

2. St. Etienne’s fatigue

In this case, the Europa League games will surely have an impact on a squad that doesn’t have a huge amount of depth. It’ll be interesting to see what sort of changes are made, if any, but we think it might be a factor in this match-up.

3. Lack of goals

There are not likely to be many goals in this game. Neither side plays in an out-and-out attack mode. Bastia has scored goals at home, but they didn’t look like quite the same threat in their sole road game so far this year.