Russia - Turkey Football prediction

Russia v Turkey Betting, Odds and Tips Preview

Russia host Turkey in the UEFA League of Nations on Sunday afternoon and a win for the hosts will get them to a promotion point. Russia has continued where left in the summer with a good start to their campaign in the League of Nations they sit on 4 points with 1 win and a draw so far. Russia enter the game as favorites to 5/4 to win the match with Turkey for 12/5 and win in Sochi.

Turkey got a last-minute win against Sweden last time but they will be against it here. That victory was the first Turkish away win in 7 games. The Crescent Moons have fought away from home and this may be up to their defense, they have already conceded 4 goals in 2 games in the League of Nations so far and they only kept 2 clean sheets in their last 12 games. These clean sheets came against Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ireland. Russia, on the other hand, just could not find the net once in their last 9 games. Both teams to score in this game are 1/1 (William Hill) and this may be a good choice as the two previous meetings between the two sides in this calendar year have allowed both sides to find the back of the net.

Russia have 5 consecutive wins against Turkey and I think they might be on the right track. They will be looking at striker Artem Dzyuba to dismiss them for victory, the 30-year-old scored his 15th goal for Russia in the reverse electric device and he is currently a generous 5/1 (Bet365) to score first on Sunday.

Another angle that interests me in this game is Russia winning and more than 2.5 goals at 14/5 (Betbright). 6 of the last 8 games involving Russia scored more than 2.5 goals scored, which bodes well for that angle of attack, and I think with the experienced Russian team we can see the home team standing out.

Team News

Russia has drawn headlines for the wrong reasons in the confrontation with Sweden after Aleksandr Kokorin was arrested for assault. The striker has not played since March, but Artem Dzyuba has established himself as the country's number one striker during Kokorin's absence.

Emre Akbaba was dismissed from the current Turkish team due to injury, but there were few changes from the defeat to Russia last time.

Potential Russia Beginning XI: Guilherme, Manuel Fernandes, Neustadter Romano, Georgiy Dzhikiya, Konstantin Rausch, Yury Gazinskiy, Romano Zobnin, Daler Kuzyaev, Aleksander Golovin, Denis Cheryshev, Artem Dzyuba

Potential Turkey Beginning XI: Sinan Bolat, Sener Ozbayrakli, Caglar Soyuncu, Kaan Ayhan, Omer Bayram, Mahmut Texdemir, Ok Yokuslu, Cengiz Sob, Oguzhan Ozyakup, Hakan Calhanoglou, Cenk Tosun

Head to head

Turkey has yet to hit Russia since the break-up of the Soviet Union.
This will be the third time the two countries meet in 2018, having drawn 1-1 in a friendly in June before the World Cup.
Key statistics and facts

Turkey kept only two clean sheets in their last 12 games.
6 of the last 8 games involving Russia scored more than 2.5 goals scored.
Betting Odds

The verdict
This game will be very close and may not be the biggest of the shows, but I think we expect to see goals in this match. I would stand by the Russians to get on top of this and continue building from their impressive World Cup.