Northern Ireland v Cyprus: Irish to come up short when it matters

Northern Ireland v Cyprus

Sunday 12 June 14:00

Live on Premier Sports 1

The end of the road for Baraclough?

It's now 13 without a win in the Nations League for Northern Ireland, following their 3-2 defeat in Kosovo.

Ian Baraclough had stated that he was aiming for four wins from their four Group C2 matches in June, but so far it's been two defeats and a draw, and the former U21 manager now has serious questions to answer.

One of them will be why he is persisting with a 4-3-3 formation, forcing Shane Lavery to play out wide, when his main strength is running in behind defences from a central area.

The Blackpool forward did manage to score on Thursday, and the one positive for Baraclough was that his side scored two goals in a game for only the second time in their last 11 fixtures.

Cyprus looking to fend off relegation again

Cyprus have also only managed to take one point from their opening three games, and they are yet to even score a goal.

Head Coach, Nikos Kostenoglou, will take heart from the fact that they managed to hold Norn to a goalless draw at the AEK Arena, and they did have a recent win too - a 2-0 success over Estonia in March.

Any likely changes for the visitors could see the experienced duo of Konstantinos Laifis and Demetris Christofi come back into the starting XI, with the former having started in the reverse fixture.

Hosts too short given current form

As limited as Cyprus are as an international team, it would take a brave person to back the hosts at 1.645/8 to finally break their Nations League duck.

Baraclough will be sure to make some changes to his team, but it's not an overstatement to suggest that anything other than a victory could see his tenure as manager come to an end.

Relegation from League C surely beckons for whoever loses this fixture, making it quite high stakes.

That brings the draw into play for me, and it can be back at around the 4.03/1 mark on the Betfair Exchange.

And for all of Northern Ireland's current deficiencies, the 6.86/1 for an away win doesn't interest me.

Take advantage of the inflated Unders

Northern Ireland had a rare high-scoring game against Kosovo last time, with five goals being scored.

A total of 10 of their last 15 have still finished with two or fewer though, and we are getting a much bigger price than usual for Under 2.5.

It is currently trading at around the 1.84/5 mark on the Exchange, and as the last meeting finished 0-0, I have to back it at that price.

Bet Builder

My Bet Builder for this game is a near 7/2 shot that combines Under 2.5 Goals, Cyprus +2 Goals on the Handicap, Under 9.5 Corners and Over 2.5 Cards.

I really can't see the Irish running away with this match - even if they do win - and there were only six corners when they met last week.