Cliftonville vs FC Nordsjaelland Predictions, Betting Tips and Match Previews

Try as they might, Northern Ireland’s Cliftonville have never quite managed to earn themselves a place in the Europa League proper. By finishing well domestically the Belfast club have often been awarded a place in the qualifying rounds, though they’ve never been able to take advantage and work themselves into the group stages. 2016 was the last time that The Reds, who’re now managed by Barry Gray, were last involved in qualifying – they reached the second round.

Like their hosts, Nordsjaelland have also struggled to get themselves through qualifying in the past. They did somehow make it through to the group stages of the Champions League in 2012, while they were involved in qualifying for that competition a year later, though they’ve failed to reach the group stages of this competition, despite attempting to qualify several times.

In truth, the previous performances of Thursday’s hosts in UEL qualifying have been poor. They made hard work of getting past a side from Luxembourg in the first round during 2016, while they looked all over the shop when conceding five on their way out to Cypriot side AEK Larnaca after that. Nordsjaelland are far from world beaters, but the hosts will have to do markedly better than that to stand a chance of going through.

However, although Cliftonville have shown poor defensive tendencies when playing in this competition in the past, they have competed offensively at times. They scored twice against a decent Larnaca side when going out in 2016, while they’ve found the net at least once in five of their last six UEL home qualifying matches. What’s more, the hosts have had the ball in the back of their opponents’ net in each of their 14 matches at Solitude since the turn of the year. Unfortunately, they’ve conceded in all but three of those.

The visitors will go to Solitude knowing that Cliftonville aren’t likely to keep things tight, so they must fancy themselves offensively, though it’s fair to say that Nordsjaelland have been anything but hard to breach on their travels in recent times. Last season in the Danish Superliga, Thursday’s visitors managed to keep just two clean sheets on their travels, while they’ve also shipped at least once in each of their last five away matches in UEL qualifying.

As was the case when Cliftonville last faced European opponents at Solitude, an open game is likely to unfold. With neither side appearing to be defensively astute, ‘Over 3.5 Goals’, a bet that has yielded a profit in each of Cliftonville’s last six at home, is the best option at the prices.