Friday Football Tips: Going for goals in Ireland

Waterford v St Patrick's
Friday 25 June, 19:45 BST kick-off

Think because Euro 2020 is on a short break that there's no football to get your teeth into? Think again, as we head off to the Irish Premier Division for Friday's Bet Builder.

It's top versus second bottom as St Patrick's visit Waterford for what should be a routine victory according to the bookies as they're a prohibitive 1.42/5 while the hosts are a whopping 8.515/2.

Five straight home defeats for Waterford helps explain that disparity, along with St Patrick's only losing once on the road this season (W3 D4).

We're trying to eek out a bit of value here though considering we've got such heavy favourites, and that value could lie in the prospect of there being over 2.5 goals in the match - which is the outsider at 2.0521/20.

That's landed in four of Waterford's last five at home and nine of the last 10 overall, while it's come in during the last three away days for St Patrick's and seven of their last 10 overall.

They're decent enough stats to roll with goals going over on this occasion.

I actually like the outsider in the both teams to score market too, which has 'no' pegged as the 1.68/13 favourite and 'yes' at 2.35/4.

And you can see why, as Waterford are the joint-lowest scorers in the division and have scored just four goals in eight games at their Regional Sports Centre home - so another blank is expected here.

However, I think there's a way in which to profit here as Waterford have had something of a mini-revival of late, winning two of their last three matches and scoring six goals during those contests.

That's 50% of their season tally in just three games, which includes bagging the first goal at home against Shamrock Rovers, who have an identical record to leaders St Patrick's.

So the hosts will have confidence of at least scoring, and that adds nicely to our Bet Builder which comes out at around 3.55/2.