Basel vs Young Boys Predictions

Basel now know that they won’t be winning the title, though they’ll be keen to win the race for second place, which they’re currently leading. That said, their draw against Lugano last time out was a setback, so they’ll be looking to bounce back by beating the side that has tormented them this season.

The performance of Basel last time out wasn’t overly poor, though they didn’t offer enough going forward, as they clocked just 1.17 expected goals for. To get the better of Young Boys, then they’ll need to do considerably better in the final third. Fortunately, Sunday’s hosts had been doing well offensively prior to their draw on the road last time out. Prior to that result, their last three expected-goals for numbers read: 2.43, 2.36 and 2.5.

Then again, delivering the goods offensively against Young Boys is tougher than doing so against the likes of Thun and Xamax. This will be the third time that Basel have come up against Young Boys this season and in each of the previous two matches, Marcel Koller’s men have struggled in numerous ways. They’ve found it very tough to keep a lid on Young Boys’ attacking efforts, while they’ve been unable to match them in terms of creativity either. Not only does the running score-line between the pair currently stand at 10-2 in Young Boys’ favour, but Basel have so far conceded expected-goals numbers of 2.6 and 1.77. Such numbers show that Sunday’s hosts have been a tad unlucky to concede so many against the league leaders this season, though when we discover that Basel created just 1.41 and 0.46, it’s impossible to say that they deserved anything other than two defeats.

As far as Young Boys are concerned, things continue to go swimmingly. The visitors come into this game off the back of a four-game winning streak, while they’ve also kept four straight clean sheets. At both ends of the pitch, Young Boys have excelled this season; they’ve shipped an average of just 0.88 goals, have scored an average of 2.71, while they also boast an average of 2.16 expected goals and just 1.08 against. Unsurprisingly, Sunday’s visitors better Basel in every single one of those categories.

Considering that Young Boys have outperformed Basel in all areas this season and considering that they’ve comfortably been better than Sunday’s hosts in each of the previous two renewals of this fixture, it’s easy to think that they should be shorter in the betting. Quite simply, a small bet on the visitors to overcome Basel for the third time this season is hard to resist, as such a bet represents value at the current prices.