Lierse VS Excelsior Virton

Liese welcome Virton for this Challenger Pro League round 15 battle at Het Lisp in Lier early Monday morning Beijing time. This is the second-highest tier of Belgian football and is of mediocre level by European standards – better than for example my home country's Finland's first tier, Veikkausliiga. The biggest, usually pretty sharp bookies see the the hosts very favorites at the time of writing this, however, I would not be surprised to see the visitors's odds to go down by the start of the game.. I see Lierse having an only 52% chance of winning. The goal expectancy here is a bit lower than the betting markets's estimation of 2.93. I would set the number at 2.74. This suits our handicap bet of +1.5 goals on Virton very well indeed! We would profit even if Virton were to lose by one goal's difference. I expect Virton's coach to choose a pretty cautious, defensive strategy here. They are limited team offensively but Lierse's defense has been very shaky this season and especially during the latest three games. Their defense lacks structure, individual skill and often their defenders and midfielders look lazy/ not 100% motivated.. This is not a good sign for Lierse. Deinze scored two goals, Beveren five and Anderlecht two goals against them in their most recent three matches. I would not be shocked too see Virton score more than one goal here!

Lierse currently occupy the 5th place in the standings with 22 points. This flatters them as the number of expected points (xPTS) for them is just 19 and in their current for they are definitely not even a top-8 team. Virton are the rock-bottom team but do have a chance to topple Genk U23 - and perhaps also St. Liege U23 during the remainder of the season. They undoubtedly do have some scoring potential – they have netted the ball 27 times in this league this season but lately their offense has looked much more than early season. Yes, the hosts are the stronger team but let's still remember that according to a famous and highly-respected German website Transfermarkt.com the hosts’ squad is valued at 5.75 euros. The visitors’ players have a total market value of just 5.78 million. The market values can, of course, be misleading, but the bookies and many professional football bettors pay increasingly more attention to these numbers.. The football (players) market is, after all, a global one. However, if two players are equally good and one of them is 24 years old and the other is 34 years old the younger guy, of course, has a substantially bigger market value. In my view, Lierse's players'estimated market value million is a bit too low and I would say some 6.2-6.4 million would be the fair number.! Two of their players are under-valued! Virton, on the other hand, are, in my view, marginally weaker on the pitch than the 5.75 million would reflect.. My point is that the difference in class between the two teams is clearly smaller than the betting market - or probably most football analysts believe.. Lierse have lost four and the visitors all five of the their most recent games.. Neither team have convinced me lately and seem to be low in confidence. I believe a draw would be a somewhat satisfactory result for both teams.