Wales continue their Euro 2020 campaign on Wednesday afternoon when they embark on a huge match against Turkey in Group A with Baku once again the venue for the semi-finalists of five years ago.
Wales would have wanted to come out of their opening match against Switzerland with more than a draw to show for their efforts and with Italy to come this is a match they really need to win. Turkey also need to win it so this should be an entertaining game.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on BBC1. With this being a match featuring a Home Nation it gets a longer build-up which means that starts at 4pm with the game kicking off at 5pm.
Turkey
I think it is fair to say that we didn’t get anything like the best version of Turkey in the opening match. Whether the stage was too big for them only they will know but to be fair to them they came up against a pretty crack hot looking Italy side. Now that they have them out of the way they can get stuck into what they might call the meat and potatoes of their group with this match and the Switzerland one after it. The defeat to Italy wasn’t good but if they pick up four points from these two matches they will be through to the next round.
If that is going to happen then Turkey are going to have to offer more going forward. They don’t lack for goal threats though so it might just be that they were playing against a stubborn Italy defence and we look back on that game at the end of the group for what it was. What would be more of a concern for Turkey fans is how quickly the tank emptied in their players in Rome. Turkey will effectively have home advantage here and will need the crowd to keep them going for the full 90 minutes.
Wales
I don’t think Wales gave their best performance in their opener on Saturday afternoon either. They probably came away from the match thinking they had won it though having fallen behind but then managed to get themselves back into the game. A draw there was an alright result, one which will be made better with a win here, but should Wales lose this match or even draw it with Italy in their final game, you’ve got to think they’ll be on the first flight home.
It isn’t really their style in recent matches but Wales have to start playing with the football. You can’t play in these conditions, and looking ahead if they managed to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar, without the ball. It is just too hard. You can defend for a time but at the end of a long season tiredness quickly becomes a factor. If Wales can keep the ball better and get higher up the pitch and get Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey and Daniel James et al in the game they’ve got to fancy their chances here.
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Team News
Turkey are understood to have a fully fit squad available to them for this match after Caglar Soyuncu has recovered from the injury which caused him to miss training over the weekend. Senol Gunes may choose to freshen things up a bit though.
Robert Page has declared that he has a fully fit squad to pick from as well as he goes in search of a first win of the campaign. He might well stick with an unchanged side unless he chooses to utilise David Brooks from the beginning.
Betting
I think the way this group is now setup and the importance of a result to both of these sides the potential for goals in the game is quite high. I say that because the first goal is going to make the side who concedes it come out and have to open up a bit to get back into the game. A draw doesn’t really do any of these two teams a favour so that should also help with the intention of both sides to find the back of the net. There are some decent attacking players on the pitch for this match and if we get an early goal we could see this one open right up. I like the look of over 2.5 goals in this one.
I’ll also have a small play on Daniel James to score anytime. Italy looked like scoring every time they attacked down their left side in the first game against Turkey and so James could get a lot of joy down that flank. To be fair to Switzerland, they kept him under control in the main but as Turkey tire the Manchester United winger will be even more of a threat here, and he should be quite threatening anyway. The 11/2 that he finds the net at some point in this match looks a little too high to me.
Tips
Back Over 2.5 goals for a 3/10 stake at 2.63 with BetVictor
Back D.James to score anytime for a 1/10 stake at 6.50 with BetVictor
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