It’s the opening day of the UEFA Europa League and this particular match has Spain’s Real Sociedad travelling the just shy of 900km trip to the Allianz Riviera to take on OGC Nice.
Usually one of the top six teams in La Liga, Real Sociedad have not had the best of starts to this year’s edition. Unsurprisingly, losing two of their best players seems to be having a drastic effect on their performances. With centre back Robin Le Normand joining fellow Spanish outfit Atlético Madrid and centre midfielder Mikel Merino signing a four year deal with Arsenal, they have struggled. They have not managed to replace either departure with good enough players and it shows. The two big losses for OGC Nice haven’t held them back at all. Khéphren Thuram finally got his big move away and Jean-Clair Todibo who was linked with Manchester United for several windows eventually joined West Ham as part of a loan deal. A problem they do have now though is that three of their main attacking options will miss this game due to injuries that will keep them sidelined for a couple of months.
Predicted Line-Up: Bulka; Ndayishimiye, Bombito, Dante; Clauss, Rosario, Ndombele, Bard; Cho, Moukoko, Guessand
OGC Nice didn’t get off the greatest of starts to their Ligue 1 campaign, losing 2-1 to Auxerre on the opening weekend of the season. They slowly started to improve after that early defeat, sharing a point with Toulouse after a 1-1 draw and then an even better result occurred the week after. All three points were picked up following their first win of the season, beating Angers in style, 1-4 come the final whistle. It was back down to losing in matchday four as the couldn’t manage to beat title challengers Marseille. Their most recent game however was mightily impressive and will do wonders for their confidence heading into this match against Real Sociedad. Nice handed out an 8-0 thrashing versus Saint-Etienne with six different scorers for them.
Les Aiglons have their remaining fit attackers firing on all cylinders. Evann Guessand has four goal contributions, new loan signing Youssoufa Moukoko has three and former Marseille right back Jonathan Clauss also has three. Nice have someone that was once at Sociedad not long ago, winger Mohamed-Ali Cho joined in last year’s January transfer window and this season he has already bagged himself two goals. He could spring to life in this game and haunt his previous club as Nice’s attack minded tactics will allow him to bomb up and down the right hand side.
Predicted Line-Up: Remiro; Aramburu, Zubeldia, Aguerd, Gomez; Sucic, Zubimendi, Turrientes; Kubo, Becker, Oyarzabal
Real Sociedad are in anything but flying form at the moment, something you would not expect. A 1-2 loss against Rayo Vallecano kickstarted their campaign. There was a glimmer of hope when they won 0-1 away from home at Espanyol but that would soon diminish as they again lost 1-2 at home, this time to Deportivo Alaves. It was then onto the draws as neither side could manage to score in a goalless draw versus Getafe, then Sociedad went onto losing in back to back games. Real Madrid beating them 0-2 and then Mallorca with a 1-0 victory. Real’s most recent match was another draw, a stalemate with fellow relegation battled side Real Valladolid.
All those poor results have Txuri-Urdin currently sitting in 16th place with just five points and a goal difference of minus four. The players that Sociedad heavily relied on last season like Mikel Oyarzabal, Takefusa Kubo and Brais Méndez who achieved 12, 11 and 11 goal contributions, have either just not hit the ground running or are injured at this point in time. That will need to change as soon as possible for Real Sociedad if the don’t want to run the risk of potentially being relegated or being knocked out of the UEFA Europa League before they can even start to pick up form.
With Real Sociedad being in terrible form as of late, it’s hard to see past them winning this match. Despite Nice’s recent match where they scored eight times, this will be a tough battle between these two sides.
For that reason, our betting experts have gone with OGC Nice To Win as out best value tip for this game.
Odds of 7/5 mean that a £10 bet has the potential to return up to £24 in this match.
(odds subject to change)
OGC Nice 1-0 Real Sociedad
Nice’s 8-0 win over Saint-Etienne seems like it was a bit of an anomaly and now they come up against a side that have been very good defensively even, only conceding seven goals from seven games, averaging out as a goal a game. OGC Nice are also riddled with injuries throughout their attacking department so finding the back of the net in this game should be a challenge.
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