Krasnodar v Rubin Kazan Betting Tips

Given the resources and talented playing squad at each club, both of these teams should be looking at pushing into the European spots this season. However, things have not quite gone to plan so far and they have a bit of catching up to do.

Krasnodar have improved after a brief slip-up in the Russian Premier League but are still three points off the Europa League spots. Igor Shalimov’s team put in an excellent performance against Ligue 1 leaders OGC Nice. The fact they managed to score five goals shows the prowess of Krasnodar’s attack as Nice have only conceded four goals in the league so far this season.

In a wider perspective, this result shows that Russian football is certainly catching up with the big leagues in Europe and will soon surpass France. According to the UEFA coefficients rankings, Russia are only 0.667 points behind France at the moment – the overtake is inevitable.

The forward trio of Joazhinho (who is now the Europa League’s top scorer), Ari and Fedor Smolov all got on the score-sheet on Thursday night and those three are arguably the most dangerous front-line in Russia right now.

After a torrid start to the Russian Premier League season, despite spending vast sums of money, Rubin Kazan have had an upturn in results in recent weeks and have overcome potential hurdles in the likes of Ural and Tom Tomsk.

However, during this time they were also thrashed 4-1 by Zenit. In Krasnodar, the other of the division’s most attacking sides and so it will be interesting to see how Rubin cope with that – especially being away as they were at Zenit.

Whilst Rubin’s attack, with the likes of Jonathas de Jesus and former Russian wonder-kid Maksim Kannunikov, will always be a threat, It is their defence which is a problem and Javi Gracia’s side have already conceded 11 goals this season – worse than either of the two sides in the automatic relegation spots. This is incredibly surprising when you think they have somebody as talented as former Arsenal and Barcelona midfielder Alex Song to sit and protect the defence. There can be no doubt that the aforementioned forward line of Krasnodar will take advantage of this.

Rubin are still yet to prove that they can play well against the big sides, particularly away from home, and so I would definitely have to back a Krasnodar win given their attacking strength against a poor Kazan back-line. Having said that, the Bulls are not the tightest defensive unit themselves so Gracia’s men could create a couple of chances of their own. The bet I would advise here is ‘Krasnodar to Win & Over 2.5 Goals Total”. This allows either Krasnodar’s front-line to be on good form, just as they were midweek, or Rubin to run them close – essentially you can win on two types of game here. I am surprised that the odds are so good for punters here given the reasoning laid out above.

See all of Sunday’s tips here.