Zenit vs Dundalk Predictions & Betting Tips, Match Previews

Zenit are looking absolutely dominant at the moment. Their 1-0 win over Tom’ Tomsk on Sunday made it six wins and one defeat for them in their last seven outings in all competitions, and that one defeat is their only loss of the season so far.

This puts them right up there near the top of the Russian Premier League, with them tied at the top with Spartak Moscow. They have also won all of their opening three Europa League group games to put them almost out of sight at the top of the group. A win on Thursday could wrap up the top spot in the group with two games to spare.

Zenit visited Dundalk just a few weeks ago in the Europa League, and many pundits tipped the Russians as huge favourites for a big win. It actually turned out a lot more difficult than they expected though, with Dundalk taking the lead and then a quickfire double 15 minutes from time tying up a hard fought three points for Zenit.

Brazilian attacker Guiliano bagged the winner in this game to take his Europa League tally to three for the season, and added to his six Premier League goals it makes him the top scorer in the Zenit squad. Six of these nine goals have come in St Petersburg as well, so backing him to find the back of the net at 6/5 with bet365 looks an excellent choice.

Dundalk are definitely the underdogs here, but they can be extraordinarily pleased with how their season has gone. They made it all the way to the Champions League playoffs before being knocked out by Legia Warsaw, but that granted them access to the Europa League group stages for the first time in their history. They managed a win over Maccabi Tel Aviv and a draw at AZ and find themselves well in with a chance of taking one of the qualification spots.

Their European commitments have affected domestic form a bit, but they still sit atop the League of Ireland Premier Division with a seven point cushion on Cork City.

Zenit will feel very confident about wrapping up qualification on Thursday though. They hammered AZ 5-0 at home and beat Maccabi Tel Aviv 4-3 away from home before their win over Dundalk. This makes it 11 goals in their three Europa League matches, and Guiliano has found himself on the score-sheet in all of them. Backing him to score at 6/5 looks like the best value bet again for this one, and I’m going for that along with a 3-1 correct score prediction at 10/1.