FC Orenburg v Ural Yekaterinburg Betting Tips

These two sides have had pretty atrocious starts to the season and will need to improve quickly if they want to escape the threat of relegation. Both of them will no doubt have targeted this as a winnable fixture so it will be interesting to see how the managers set up their teams for Sunday’s match.

Orenburg have been the opposite of last year where their firepower took them to the FNL title. Despite being stuck in the relegation spots, Robert Yevdokimov’s team have actually been pretty sound at the back and have only conceded more than one goal in a match once and that was against table-toppers Spartak Moscow. They have only conceded six goals in their first seven matches which rivals some of the teams in the top half such as Krasnodar, Terek Grozny and Rostov.

Instead it is their forward line which has failed to supply the goods so far this season with only two goals scored, the lowest of any side in the division, and even then one of those was a mere consolation in last week’s loss at home to Spartak Moscow. Although the Russian Premier League is generally not a high-scoring league and you can get away with having an average forward line, these problems in the final third need to be solved as soon as possible if they want to avoid an immediate return to the second tier.

Ural were pretty impressive in their opening day win at home to Ufa and adopted a new 3-5-2 formation to the surprise of many, however, since then it has been nothing but disappointment and they have failed to win a match. Having said that, they were not a million miles off winning a couple of games and have generally only lost matches by a mere goal, as was the case in last week’s home defeat to inconsistent Anzhi Makhachkala.

Like Orenburg, Ural do not look too bad at the back but lack any real threat going forward with ageing former Tottenham Hotspur striker Roman Pavlyuchenko being relied on to get the goals for the Ekaterinburg side this season.

Overall I get the feeling that, whilst both sides could really do with the three points, this is certainly more a ‘must not lose’ match rather than a ‘must win’. If either of them lose and other results go against them they could find themselves rather cut adrift after just seven matches. With this in mind I imagine both teams will pretty much cancel each other out and I cannot see there being many goals.

The bookies have also gone with a similar prediction so unfortunately the draw is a pretty low price. However, you can look at markets around that and find some good prices.

Firstly I would go with 0-0 at half time. Neither of these sides are likely to threaten much in the first half and it will be a case of keeping hold of what they already have. Additionally, both have scored in the first half in just one match this season.

A similar bet to this is to predict both halves separately in which I would advise Draw/Draw. I think this match will be a bit of a damp squib and, as previously mentioned, both sides will be keen to make sure they do not lose this match.

Finally, with neither side particularly good in the final third and pretty solid at the back, I would try and fit an Under 2.5 Goals bet in. The best way of doing this is ‘Draw & Under 2.5 Goals’ at 2/1 which allows a 1-1 draw if either side manages to take one of their rare chances.

See more Russian Premier League tips here.