Football Bet of the Day: Basement side can strike

Defences to be breached

St. Patrick's Athletic v Longford Town
Friday 03 September, 19:45

As launch parties go, it wasn't exactly wild. Hansi Flick's Germany laboured to a 2-0 win over Liechtenstein in the coach's first game in charge last night, despite dominating territory and possession, and the goal tally ended up well short of where we needed it to be.

We'll hope for more entertainment in the Republic of Ireland tonight, because title contenders St. Patrick's Athletic are in action against rock-bottom Longford Town. Although there's a big quality gap, I think both teams can find the net.

Longford are the team with the worst record in the division, and that's by quite some distance. They are 16 points behind second-bottom Dundalk, and they have only won one game in the league all season. They have the worst attacking record in the division (16 goals scored in 25 matches), and the worst defence (45 goals leaked).

However, Longford have been scoring goals on the road of late. They have found the net in five of their last six away games in the league, and they ground out 1-1 draws at Dundalk, Finn Harps and Bohemians in the last three months.

St. Patrick's suffered a 3-1 defeat at Finn Harps last time out, which was a blow to their title chances. They have been leaking goals recently, with no clean sheets across their last five competitive matches. We'd expect the hosts to win this game (they have won their last five league matches at Richmond Park), but I think a more attractive angle is to back Both Teams To Score at 2.3211/8. If you want to double up, you can use the Sportsbook to back a St. Patrick's win/BTTS double at 12/5.