Moldova v Republic of Ireland: Best bets relate to minimal goals
Published:
The start of qualification for World Cup 2018 could not have gone much worse for Moldova, suffering two defeats, failing to score a single goal and shipping seven.
A 4-0 defeat in Wales was followed by a 3-0 home reverse to Serbia. This is far from ideal ahead of entertaining a Republic of Ireland that drew 2-2 in Serbia and most recently beat Georgia 1-0.
However, this is an Ireland side that has only won three of their last 19 road internationals and one of these arrived against Gibraltar.
This statistic alone makes it difficult to put full trust in the 8/15 offered on an away victory, even though Ireland are ranked 130 places superior to their hosts in the FIFA World Rankings in 31st spot. They are also without a concussed Robbie Brady and an injured Jeff Hendrick here.
A better bet relates to how many goals the Irish may score in Moldova. They have only failed to trouble the scorers once in their last 18 internationals, which was in their 3-0 defeat to Belgium at Euro 2016.
Meanwhile, Moldova have kept just a solitary clean sheet across their last 18 outings on home soil and this was against European international football whipping boys San Marino.
Moldova have conceded at least twice in each of their last four home fixtures, but only more than two once in their last 17 matches on their own patch.
Therefore, under 2.5 goals in the match has some betting appeal at 2/3, while the 2-0 victory for the Republic of Ireland is reasonably priced at 5/1.
Furthermore, in five of the latest six games in which Moldova have conceded an even number of goals, they have shared these equally between the first and second periods.
It is 11/5 that both halves see the same number of goals here, with 2/1 on offer that the opening 45 minutes is the highest scoring and 11/10 that the most goals are netted after the interval.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing
