This match sees two squads who have been somewhat ripped apart this summer go head-to-head in what could be one of the more dull ties of the weekend. This fixture also sees two Belarusian coaches come up against each other and, to add to the interest, it sees the former master of Ural, Viktor Goncharenko, take on his apprentice Vadim Skripchenko, now the manager of the Ekaterinburg side.
Ural looked like they could have made a push for the top end of the table in the middle of last season but unfortunately fell away at the end. This summer has seen them lose several key players such as midfielders Gerson Acevedo and Aleksandr Sapeta and replace them inadequately. Their signing of Roman Pavlyuchenko is baffling, a player who generally failed at Kuban last season and probably lacks the motivation to play to a high standard anymore.
Ufa escaped the relegation trap door by the skin of their teeth in the last season and this campaign has also started badly without a competitive ball being kicked having lost the Russian Premier League’s best young talent in Oleksandr Zinchenko, who has left the Bashkortostan club for Manchester City. Many are predicting yet another relegation battle for Goncharenko’s side.
As previously mentioned, this match will probably be quite boring. I think it is almost impossible to predict a winner for this match so I have gone with two half-time bets.
1) Half-time draw at Evens with Betfair
2) 0-0 at half-time at 6/4 with William Hill
I think it will be tense in the first half and I cannot see anybody scoring in the opening 45 minutes. Each side is likely to be too worried about not going behind and thus there really shouldn’t be much in the way of goalmouth action in the opening half.
See more Russian Premier League tips here.