Icelandic Football
2013-06-16 - Stjarnan Gardabae vs Keflavik
A Sports Betting Pick by Cornholio
Football : Icelandic top league : Round 7
Sunday 16 June 2013, Kickoff 20:00 GMT
This is a clash between two teams in different positions. The hosts, who are expected to be in the top battle, are playing quite well while the visitors, who are expected to be in the relegation battle, have been quite bad in recent games.
Stjarnan Gardabae
Stjarnan seem to finally be getting their defence together after years of trouble at the back. This is in part due to their new manager Logi Olafsson who is very experienced and has managed to reorganize the team. After six rounds Stjarnan have conceded 6 goals compared to 10 goals last season.
Like always Stjarnan creates a lot of chances and even though they have only gotten a single goal from their two key strikers they have scored 10 goals and sit in 4th place with 13 points, only 3 points behind leaders KR Reykjavik. Their manager isn‘t worried about the lack of goals from the two strikers and he is well aware of the fact that his team always produces a lot of chances so he has obviously been putting most of the work into the defencive part which has payed off. Stjarnan has an excellent attacking set of midfield players who have been very good so far.
Stjarnan saw off IA Akranes pretty easily away in last round beating them 1-3 creating many more chances to score from. This victory puts Stjarnan at 3 0 1 on the road while being 1 1 0 at home and having only played two home games makes Stjarnan‘s current position even more lucrative. The draw at home came against Valur Reykjavik who are in 2nd place and have played very well while the victory came against a poor Vikingur Olafsvik side in the only game so far where Stjarnan have conceded two goals.
Stjarnan will certainly press for the victory against a troublesome Keflavik team to secure their place in the top battle.
Keflavik
Keflavik have been off to a bad start and sit in 9th place with 4 points and a scoreline of 7:13 which has them conceding the second most in the league.
After the good 1-3 away win at Olafsvik in round 3 they have not won in last three and got beaten 1-2 at home against Fram in last round in a game where they didn‘t produce much. The word on the street is that their manager is getting shaky in his job and former Fram manager, who suddenly quit at his club in last week, could take over. However, those are only speculations and nothing has been veryfied yet.
Regardless of that, Keflavik need to pull their act together if they aren‘t going to get in serious trouble since they are only 3 points ahead of bottom placed Vikingur Olafsvik. They still haven‘t won at home where their record is 0 1 2 and they only managed a draw there against a poor Fylkir team. Like previously stated they got a good away win against Vikingur Olafsvik and, to be fair, their two away losses came against very strong sides of FH Hafnarfjordur and Valur Reykjavik.
What is worrying for Keflavik is that Stjarnan isn‘t much worse than the two last ones above so getting something against Stjarnan means that Keflavik must turn their performance upside down from last few games.
Head to head
Since 2000 the two have met 13 times with a gap between 2000 and 2008. Keflavik have won 6 times while a draw has been made 5 times. That means only 2 wins for Stjarnan so Keflavik have the upper hand there.
Last season each of the two won their away game. 7 of their last 8 meetings were over 3.5 goals – yes that‘s over 3.5 goals. Pretty interesting statistics there.
Betting verdict
If it weren‘t for the head to head and the fact Keflavik aren‘t newcomers in the top league I would rate this one as a home win banker. But, despite the fact that Keflavik have the better in the head to head they have been on a much worse form than Stjarnan and one wonders if the departure of their loyal key striker Gudmundur Steinarsson is having some negative effect on them.
Stjarnan have a much stronger group and if they continue to create as many chances as they have been doing I don‘t think they will have too much trouble in finishing the visitors off. Their defence is also improving very well which is holding me a little bit back from recommending the over 3.5 goals bet . I mean, 7 out of last 8 going over 3.5 goals sounds tempting but at a price of 2.2 or so I‘m not ready to take it, mostly because of Stjarnan‘s solid defence in latest games.
It‘s much safer to simply go for Stjarnan to win which is at a very fair price, probably due to the head to head results. Hence, I‘m going for the home win and, hoping that Stjarnan will continue creating chances producing a fun game to follow, some goals will be created in this one.
The Pick :
Stjarnan Gardabae 4-1 Keflavik
BEST BETTING TIP :
Take Stjarnan Gardabae to win @ 1.57 (Bet Victor)
