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Steffen Schmidt - September 5, 2023
Slovenia vs Northern Ireland
EURO Qualifications
Date: 7 September 2023, Thursday
Kick-off at 19:45 UK / 20:45 CET
Venue: Stadion Stozice (Ljubljana).
Northern Ireland have put themselves in a very difficult situation in qualifying group H after dropping the ball in the home fixture against Kazakhstan in March this year.
It was the third subsequent 0-1 defeat for Michael O’Neill’s men who have collected only three points from the inaugural four matches in this campaign, courtesy of a 0-2 road win over San Marino in Matchday No 1.
Northern Ireland clearly have big issues with the lack of attacking talent and we can hardly be optimistic regarding their chances in the away clash against Slovenia on Thursday evening.
The Slovenians managed seven points from four outings which is currently good enough for the third place in this very competitive group.
The team led by Matjaz Kek managed to show a great resistance in the home clash against group favorites Denmark (a 1-1 stalemate) in the previous round.
They have a couple of great strikers in the likes of Benjamin Sesko and Andraz Sporar. We know Sesko from his great performances for Salzburg in the UEFA Champions League while Sporar left mark in the Championship before moving to Greek giants Panathinaikos.
Slovenia have a great chance to collect six points from the two September outings against the bottom two outfits in the group.
Slovenia have a great chance to put the pressure on the likes of Finland and Kazakhstan in the battle for the top two spots in the group with a win over Northern Ireland here. The hosts possess enough quality in their ranks to get one and we will take the 1.83 odds offered for this scenario.
The second option would be Slovenia to keep a clean sheet at the 2.10 odds knowing that Northern Ireland have failed to find the back of the net in three consecutive qualifiers.
