Thursday nights are Europa nights, as they say, and this week is no different. Those flash Champions League types have swanned off to other days of the week to leave us Europa Heads to focus on more vintage continental action in its rightful place.
Our in-form tipster Colin Harvey is on hand to guide us through the weird and wonderful world of the Europa League and Conference League with some picks that will hopefully pay involving the clubs from outside of the UK and Ireland at 8pm.
Thursday Football Accumulator Tips
Borac Banja Luka v Panathinaikos – Borac Banja Luka (+1)
Elfsborg v Roma – Roma to win
FC Twente v Fenerbahce – Both teams to score and over 2.5 goals? Yes
Plzen v Ludogorets – Ludogorets (+1)
- An acca with these bets pays at approximately 13/1 with Paddy Power. CLICK HERE TO ADD IT TO YOUR BETSLIP.
Borac Banja Luka v Panathinaikos – Borac (+1)
TV: Discovery+
We’ll kick off our Thursday night acca with Panathinaikos away at something called Borac Banja Luka. Borac Banja Luka, I’m reliably informed, are not an indie landfill band from the ’00s, but a Bosnian football team who compete in the Europa Conference League.
Borac only lost to Hungarian table-toppers Ferencvaros via penalties in the Europa League final qualifying round so they might be a tougher nut to crack than you’d think. They are 5th in the Bosnian league but have played the fewest games in the division because of their European exploits and have conceded just two in six.
Panathinaikos are not great travelers and are yet to pick up a win on the road in the Greek league this season. They’re 8th with two wins, two draws and two defeats. With that poor away form and Borac’s good defence, backing the hosts (+1) in the handicaps looks a good bet.
Elfsborg v Roma – Roma to win
TV: TNT Sports 7
We’re off to the bright lights of the Europa League for the remaining three bets on Thursday and Elfsborg v Roma is one of the ties that catches the eye. The home side are 25 games into their season and sit 5th in the Allsvenskan while Roma are languishing in 9th in Serie A after six games.
Draws have been a problem for the Romans so far, with three stalemates, two wins and a loss on their record. They kicked off their Europa League campaign with a credible home draw with Athletic Bilbao while Elfsborg went down swinging with a 3-2 away loss at AZ Alkmaar.
The Italians might just be hitting their stride now, though, and they come here with two wins in Serie A bookending that European draw since Ivan Juric took over. They will expect to win here and the price is decent enough to be included here.
FC Twente v Fenerbahce – BTTS & over 2.5 goals? Yes
TV: TNT Sports 8
It’s all eyes on the next installment of the Jose Mourinho show here where the box-office Portuguese and his Fenerbahce friends head to FC Twente who – plot twist – took a point against Mou’s old side Manchester United on opening night. Despite all the nonsense, Fener are second in the Turkish Super Lig and they won last week in Europe.
Twente are going quite nicely in the Eredivisie and sit fourth with just the one loss to their name. They’ll be buoyed by that draw against their old pal Erik ten Hag and they’ve got a man in rich goal-scoring form in Sem Steijn.
He’s a good price to score but was pretty anonymous against United so we’ll give him a swerve here. Instead we’ll say yes to the question, will both teams to score and there be over 2.5 goals in this game.
Twente have been trying to keep things quite tight but it’s been a – pot twist – free-flowing jamboree from Mourinho’s men who have scored 16 in seven games domestically. The hosts have scored 13 and conceded the same number in seven so this could be a good watch on the pitch as well as in the dugout.
Plzen v Ludogorets – Ludogorets (+1)
TV: Discovery+
Czechia’s Viktoria Plzen welcome perennial Bulgarian champions Ludogorets in our final match up and they come into this as paddy’s big favourites. Like Elfsborg, Ludogorets are deep into their season and they’ve already racked up 35 games in the league.
The thing that makes this game tricky is that Ludogorets lost 2-0 at home to the team top of Plzen’s league, Slavia Prague, in their Europa opener seven days ago. Plzen, for their part, busted a few coupons by drawing 3-3 away at Frankfurt of the Bundesliga.
Slavia pumped Plzen 3-0 less than two weeks ago so that’s something to compare the two by. It’s still a pretty confusing picture but Plzen are Paddy’s big favourites in this game, presumably based off the results from the first round of fixtures.
Those odds look way too heavily weighted in favour of the home side for me and Plzen were battered by Frankfurt before scoring two late goals to pinch a point. I think the visitors are probably, actually, the better side and we can take advantage of that with Ludogorets (+1) in the handicaps.
European football tips
Borac Banja Luka v Panathinaikos – Borac Banja Luka (+1)
Elfsborg v Roma – Roma to win
FC Twente v Fenerbahce – Both teams to score and over 2.5 goals? Yes
Plzen v Ludogorets – Ludogorets (+1)
- An acca with these bets pays at approximately 13/1 with Paddy Power. CLICK HERE TO ADD IT TO YOUR BETSLIP.
All prices are bang up to date with our snazzy widgets, while odds in copy are accurate at time of publishing but subject to change.
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