Esbjerg-FC Copenhagen preview

Sunday 26/7 18.00

Esbjerg (5th) will be looking forward to welcome their big summer-signing striker Nicki Bille to the home field. Bille is a decent striker, but we believe him too be a bit overrated. He did not make much in the first match in AaB, where fellow striker Mick van Buren was more dominant. Nevertheless, Esbjerg have a fairly strong attack (second most scoring last season), especially if midfielder Mohammed Fellah is in supply mode. Defensively, the situation is different. The central defence is perhaps the worst in the league, and they are notoriously overly eager and poor positioned. Esbjerg also have a big weakness on set pieces, where they conceded many goals last season. FC Copenhagen did not play last weekend due to a postponed match. They will be interesting to follow this season, since they made some remarkable signings. The midfield has been strengthened with signings of William Kvist (Wigan), Benjamin Verbic (Celje) and Kaspser Kusk (Twente) and the defence with the signing of Peter Ankersen (Salzburg). All are quality players that should lift FC Copenhagen too a higher level. FC Copenhagen had the best defence last season and managed to keep a clean sheet in 18 matches! The offence is the problematic position, but the hope is that they will be able to create more with two new wingers. FC Copenhagen have also signed a new striker, but he has not yet arrived (Federico Santander). Until then, they will have to settle with Marvin Pourie, who is not exactly a quality match. The risk is that FC Copenhagen will control matches, but fail to get the wins due to a lack of striker power. FC Copenhagen play an Europa League match on Thursday in Wales against Newtown. They will probably rotate for this match.

FC Copenhagen are superior to Esbjerg and it is difficult to see how to home team will be able to dominate this match. Their hope is that the new FC Copenhagen players are not yet settled and also a bit fatigued by the Europa League match. The market has priced the 1X2 as we would. Given FC Copenhagen’s ability to keep opponents from scoring, this might be an option of interest.

Idea: Esbjerg to score under 0.5 goals – 2.55 at Unibet