Apollon v Aberdeen Betting Tips: Goals, goals, goals at Tsirio Stadium

By winning the first-leg, Aberdeen have put themselves in a decent position ahead of this second fixture but, as they conceded an away-goal, the tie is far from over. A one-goal lead is about as tentative as it gets, especially when you’ve conceded an away goal. Having said that, Aberdeen found plenty of attacking joy against this opposition last week and so the Scots should be confident of bagging at least one away-goal of their own in this fixture. As far as Apollon are concerned, they know they’re still in the fight thanks to the fact that they found the net last week although they’ll also be aware that they need to offer a bit more going forward this time around.

In front of a home crowd, Apollon are seemingly expected to get the win according to the bookies although their odds-on price of 19/20 does seem to be a bit much. The Cypriot side were by no means outclassed last week but they did show something of a soft underbelly and hardly look worthy of odds-on favouritism here. At the same time, even though their price appeals far more than that of the hosts, Aberdeen can’t be strongly fancied to win as they too are far from secure at the back. With goals looking fairly likely for both, the two bets that stand out are ‘Both Teams to Score’ and ‘Over 2.5 Goals’ at even-money and 6/5 respectively – two prices that are certainly worth snapping up based on both this pair’s recent form and how last week’s match panned out.

During that first-leg, Aberdeen did attempt to make most of the running and were fairly successful in doing so; they took an early lead with a wonderfully worked goal after just four minutes at Pittodrie before dominating the entirety of the first-half. Unfortunately for the Scottish outfit, they were unable to keep the Cypriots at bay during the second-half as they allowed them a couple of opportunities, one of which was duly taken by Brazilian full-back Jander. However, Aberdeen’s attacking intent remained and they were rewarded when captain Graeme Shinnie picked out the bottom right corner from 20-25 yards out with 13 minutes to go. Much like last week, there should be goals in this match for the Scottish outfit if they do the right things going forward but they’re are a side who have a habit of showing teams the door as far conceding goals goes and it’s difficult to see them shutting out the Cypriots away from home. What’s more, Aberdeen have conceded in four of their last five while both teams have also scored in four of those five.

They did indeed threaten at times last week but you’d have to fancy even more from the Cypriot side in their own back yard. They’ve got a good scoring record at home – notched at least once in each of their last 23 matches at Tsirio Stadium, a run which extends back as far as September last year – and will be uplifted by the fact that Aberdeen don’t often keep a clean sheet on their travels. In fact, the Scottish visitors have shut their opposition out in just three of their last ten on the road. At the same time though, given how they defended last week, it’s fairly difficult to see Apollon keeping a clean sheet here. Sokratis Sokratous’ team have conceded in all but one of their seven games – four friendlies and three Europa League qualifiers – since the end of their domestic campaign back in May and could struggle to keep out a side who scored twice against them last Thursday.

Overall, we’re talking about a tie that is still very much open and, just as we saw last week, Aberdeen and Apollon, who’ve seen ‘Over 2.5 Goals’ and ‘Both Teams to Score’ land in seven of their last ten combined, are both expected to find joy going forward and thus we should be in for another relatively high-scoring encounter.

More Europa League tips can be found here.