The International friendlies return on Wednesday night and the pick of the bunch is certainly the Netherlands taking on Spain at the Johan Cruijff Arena in Amsterdam. Neither team is exactly in the best of form of late and both are struggling for goals. Can we exploit that in the markets? We certainly can!
We’ve picked the Three Best Bets for this match, read on to find out what we’re picking.
Netherlands v Spain, Wednesday 7.45pm
Sky Sports Football
Under 2.5 Goals
The home side have only scored more than two goals in one of their seven most recent fixtures. The Spaniards have a similar record, having only found the net more than twice in one of their last five, a 4-0 home win over Ukraine in the Nations League.
Ukraine got their revenge in the last round of fixtures and beat Spain 1-0 in Kiev in a half-capacity Olimpiyskiy Stadium. This is a feature we may come to see more of, as teams are now used to playing to mostly empty stadiums in their leagues coming up against teams where home supporters are allowed into games we may well see home advantage coming back properly into football.
This won’t be the case at the Johan Cruijff Arena though as it will be played in front of no supporters. As mentioned above both are struggling for goals, and all of the Netherlands’ five most recent matches have seen Under 2.5 Goals landing.
And at home their three most recent have only seen one goal scored too. For Spain, four out of their five most recent matches have seen Unders landing and on the road all five of their five most recent on their travels have also seen Unders landing. Armed with those stats we have to go with Unders here.
Match odds: The Draw
Four of Spain’s last five away games have ended either 1-1 or 0-0 and while they’re not winning as many matches as you’d expect, they’re very tough to beat. The Netherlands’ form is quite worrying, winning just one of their five most recent fixtures, drawing and losing two.
At home they’ve recently lost to both Mexico and Italy and beat Poland of late. Prior to that they had been on a great run but the loss of Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk is a double blow as he’s obviously an important cog in their defence but, like with Liverpool, he was usually the first player to start attacks, sending the ball forward for the attacking players to chase.
Both teams face important Nations League matches at the weekend and we’re likely to see rotated squads here with a couple of fringe players getting a run out and, as such, things don’t usually gel when new players are brought into the international side. We think this has Draw written all over it.
1st Half Under 0.5 Goals
We have to exploit both teams’ lack of goal-scoring prowess here. Only one first-half goal has been scored in the Netherlands’ three most recent home matches and only one first-half goal was seen in any of Spain’s six most recent away matches. Both sides start slowly and without a crowd to motivate them this should be a pretty cagey first 45 minutes. We’re getting great odds with those stats so we’re going with Under 0.5 FH goals.
*All prices are bang up to date with our snazzy widgets, while in-copy odds are accurate at time of publication but subject to change
Netherlands v Spain tips
Under 2.5 Goals
Match odds: The Draw
1st Half Under 0.5 Goals
We’ve combined the above 3 selections in a PP News Same Game Multi special
Learn more about Paddy Power’s Same Game Multi here.
- Paddy’s Acca Insurance is NOT available with the above selections. Acca insurance – where your stake is refunded (up to £/€10) as a free bet – is only applicable in Same Game Multis or accumulators with a minimum of FOUR legs.
Read More
- Peter Crouch: Players get nervous about transfer rumours – and managers will lie to you about it
- Subbuteo adds VAR and replica Stockley Park ahead of Christmas rush
- Get the latest football tips on all the big matches on Paddy Power News
THE PADDY POWER GUIDE TO RESPONSIBLE GAMBLING – EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW
