Tonight sees the first tie of the last 16 and it's between 2nd placed Wales and 2nd placed Denmark.
Wales had the 2nd hardest average rank of opponents in their group stages with their opponents having an average ranking of 9 (Italy 4th, Switzerland 11th and Turkey 12th). Italy having a 10.8% probability chance of winning the Euros with Switzerland 1.6% and Turkey 1.2%.
Wales had an xG per game average of 1.3 which was joint 9th out of 16. Their xGA was 1.5 per game which was joint 6th. Their Post Shot xG was 1.17 per game and their Post Shot versus Pre Shot differential was 14th out of 24 suggesting their accuracy of shooting wasn't particularly great.
The differential between their opponent's xG and actual goals conceded was the biggest out of all 24 teams. xGA was 4.5 and they only conceded 2 goals. This could be down to luck, really good last ditch defending and goalkeeping or really poor finishing by their opponents. Danny Ward was 2nd top with 14 saves (87.5% saves to shots on target). Wales were 16th for differential in PS xGA versus xGA indicating some of that differenetial was definitely down to bad finishing by their opponents. In total their opponents had 0.1 more Post Shot xG versus Pre Shot xG for all the games they played.
Gareth Bale was a big contributor to their performances with xG of 1.5 and xA of 1.4 and depending on one player at this stage is not great for their chances. Ward and Ramsey are also very capable but I don't believe there is enough quality spread across the team for the next level.
Denmark were 4th out of 24 for xG with a total of 5.8 but only scored 5 goals which wasn't necessarily down to bad finishing as they had a Post Shot xG of 6.2
They were very unlucky in the first game against Finland as they came up against what turned out to be a very organised defence on a night their players' heads must not have been right after the unsavoury incident involving their team-mate. 43% of that game was played in Finland's final 3rd.
In their game against Russia every single member of their team had a touch in the Russia box.
Line ups likely to be;
Wales
- Ward
- Roberts, Mepham, Rodon and Davies
- Allen and Morrell
- Bale, Ramsey and James
- Moore
Denmark
- Schmeichel
- Christensen, Kjaer and Vestergaard
- Wass, Hojbjerg, Delaney and Maehle
- Braithwaite and Damsgaard
- Poulsen
I expect Denmark to win this by a couple of goals but instead of betting them on the handicap at 13/5 the CelticTrendsTip is Denmark to win and over 2.5 goals at 3/1 and therefore a 2-1 Denmark win would be suffice.
Celtic Trends 🍀📈⚽️
Tony@CelticTrends.com
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