Bohemians vs Derry City

Bohemians welcome Derry City for this Irish Premier League round 8 clash at Dalymount Park in Dublin early Saturday morning Beijing time. This league is, as I have previously written last summer in my European club competition qualifying preview round previews, a rather low-level as a whole.. Especially considering that Ireland, similarly to England, Scotland and Wales, do have a very strong football culture.  Ireland do have decent national team as well. In the neighboring England there are professional football players even in at the fifth highest level but in Ireland it is a very different situation. Both of teams players’ total market value is less than 2 million euros according to Transfermarkt.com. This is less than the total market value of many clubs in my home country Finland. The Finnish Veikkausliiga is ranked very low by European standards.. The hosts’ team is in my opinion over-valued and the visitors’ under-valued byplayer's total market value.  Derry City's team is surely worth close to 2.5 million euros! Moreover, the betting market respects the hosts too much here. The main explanation for the low level of this league is that probably the fact that promising youngsters leave Ireland to play in England - or sometimes in mainland Europe already in their teens. This match is probably not going to be great entertainment for football fans to watch – unless you enjoy seeing physical football where players fight hard but do not have that much skill. Betting-wise the match is, however, interesting!

The visitors are definitely the better team here by raw class and deserve to be solid favorites even away from home. The solid bet for my fans and my fans is the visitors with the -0.5 goals handicap option with a 42% chance of winning. Derry City top standings with 14 points in the bank and have not lost any matches in this league so far! There are better than the host especially offensively but have a very solid defense too. They have conceded just 4 goals so far. They have won 3 of their latest matches and I have really liked the way they have played! They were particularly good in their most recent match against a good team St. Patricks at home winning 2-1. They were super-organized and well-structured in defense and allowed the visitors just 1 shot on target but recorded 5 themselves. Before this they did not give Drogheda a real chance to get points and took a convincing 2-0 win. Bohemians, on the hand, are in disappointing form and have not won any of their latest 4 matches! I have already lowered their power rating that illustrates the teams’ raw class. Bohemians very particularly bad in their most recent match against UC Dublin, the rock-bottom team with only 3 points in the bank! It was a 1-1 draw. They had 54% ball possession but UC Dublin had more shots on target and goal attempts! They would have to improve a lot to beat Derry City here..