Fenerbahce vs Zenit St Petersburg Predictions

It was an up and down group campaign, but the Tuesday’s Turkish hosts did just about enough to grace the knockouts with their presence, though they may need to improve to get the better of a useful Zenit side.

That said, the Turks can draw on what were three promising performances at home. They weren’t great on their travels, but when welcoming teams to Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium, Ersun Yanal’s men were tough to face. In their first home match, they easily got the better of a weak Spartak Trnava side, while they also made light work of brushing aside Anderlecht. Their most recent Europa League match at this venue saw Fenerbahce draw 0-0 with a solid Dinamo Zagreb outfit, though their performance was reasonably pleasing, as they created more than their opponents going forward and gave little away at the back.

Positively, Fenerbahce emerged from the group stages having surrendered an average of just 0.37 expected goals, which tells us that they did an excellent job of keeping things tight, as does the fact that they successfully shut out each of their three opponents in Group D. The fact that they averaged 1.66 expected goals for was also very positive. This tell us that they offered plenty going forward.

In contrast, Zenit struggled to put their best foot forward when playing away from home during the group stages. The Russians failed to win any of their three travelling matches in Group C. They drew away against Copenhagen first time out, while they could only manage to draw on the road against Bordeaux too. Their final outing in Group C saw them lose by two goals to nil away against Slavia Praha.

If we look at their underlying numbers, then it’s easy to see that Zenit didn’t play well when going away from home during the group stages. They clocked expected-goals for figures of 0.59, 0.89 an 0.3, while they recorded expected-goals against figures of 1.39, 1.88 and 1.0. Such numbers do not bode well ahead of their trip to Turkey.

Given the numbers above, it’s tough to make a case for anything other than a home win. Zenit going to Turkey and improving on what are a weak set of away-day efforts is certainly not beyond the realms of possibility but given how poor they were on the road during the groups, they really ought to be a bigger price ahead of this clash. Moreover, after some encouraging displays against useful teams such as Anderlecht and Zagreb, the hosts ought to be a bit shorter. Quite simply, at the prices, backing ‘Fenerbahce to Win’ offers punters a slice of value and is very much the way to go.