Scotland face difficult task in Warsaw against Poland

Scotland face arguably their second most difficult group D match on Tuesday night when they travel to Warsaw to face a buoyant Poland team in the Stadion Narodowy. Having already travelled to Dortmund to play Germany in September and performed well, manager Gordon Strachan will be aiming to build on the recent win over Georgia and keep in touch with the early group D pace setters. One of which is Poland, who started with an easy game against Gibraltar but showed they really mean business by defeating world champions Germany at home in their previous match by two goals to nil.

The historic win over Germany has generated a real belief amongst local fans that Poland can go all the way and qualify for Euro 2016 in France. Manager Adam Nawałka will be pressing upon his players how vital it is to follow up the massive win against Germany with victory against Scotland and the Poles are 10/11 favourites with BetVictor to come away with a win. The one factor that might work against Poland is in fact that win against Germany, which may lead to some complacency against a Scotland team that are ranked much higher than themselves in the FIFA world rankings, 41 places higher to be exact. Scotland also have the experience of beating Poland away from home when they recorded a 1-0 friendly win as recently as 2013 and they are 17/4 with bet365 to notch up another victory on Tuesday night.

However, there was one defining feature of that Scotland win in 2013 and that was the absence of Poland`s star striker Robert Lewandowski. Whilst not in the same bracket as a Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi, the Bayern Munich striker is still one of the best in the world right now and just his presence in the team brings the best out of every Poland player. Lewandowski is 4/1 with Coral to score the first goal of the game. Having said that, Germany, in paying close attention to Lewandowski, allowed his strike partner Arkadiusz Milik to sneak in and score the first goal of the match on Saturday night and the Ajax forward is 7/1 with paddypower to repeat the feat against Scotland.

If Scotland are to trouble the Polish defence they will be looking towards Everton forward Steven Naismith who has been in great form for English Premier League club Everton and is available at 10/1 to open the scoring in this game with BetVictor. Another attacking player that Poland will need to keep tabs on if they are to keep a clean sheet is the pacey Ikechi Anya, who is 15/2 with paddypower to score at any time during the match.

For all Scotland`s attacking options, there can be little doubt that the first thing in Strachan`s mind will be for his team not to concede any goals and then try to hit Poland on the break. This will give Poland a different task to what they had against Germany, with Scotland not opening up and allowing Poland any space and this could result in few goals with ladbrokes offering 7/4 for their to be under 2.5 goals in the game. With such a tight game in prospect, it might take a special talent such as Lewandowski to break the deadlock and paddypower have 11/5 for Poland to win and Lewandowski to score at any time.

Realistically, Scotland will be happy to come away from this match with a point and the draw is available at 5/2 with betfred. If the Scots do come away from Warsaw with a point then a low scoring draw is likely and BetVictor have odds of 13/2 for the match to finish as a 1-1 draw.

Go To bet365

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14/10/2014     © Frixo 2024