AIK - Halmstad, Swedish Allsvenskan
2004-05-03 19.00 CET
Pick: Halmstad (Asian +0,25)
Stake: 3%
Odds: 1,79
Final reason for bet
· Halmstad has impressed so far this season.
· Halmstad has a fully fit squad
· AIK has major injury problems.
· AIK is a club in a minor crisis, both on and of the pitch.
General comment about the game
In the Swedish Allsvenskan AIK from Stockholm welcomes Halmstad to a Monday evening clash. Last year Halmstad was brilliant during the summer but when the autumn came Halmstad started to loose a lot of games and in the end they ended up on the 9th position. This year they aim higher and if merited midfielder duo Mikael Nilsson and Magnus Svensson can do what is expected from them then Halmstad has the possibilities to reach a higher spot. So far this season Halmstad is one of the most positive surprises in the Allsvenskan with three wins and one draw. Halmstad changed coach in the end of last season when Jonas Thern left and in charge now is former assistant coach Janne Andersson who has been in the club for eight years, and therefore knows the most players quite well. To this season Halmstad lost their best scorer Igor Sypniewski to Malmö and the attacking force this year will instead be Yaw Preko from Ghana who has played in Anderlecht and a number of Turkish clubs earlier on; Markus Rosenberg who is on loan from Malmö all season and Olle Kullinger who came from Enköping last year. The defensive line is built up around Tommy Jönsson who has been in the club for many years. Last game at home Halmstad came back from being down 2-0 against Helsingborg to win with 3-2 after a very good second half. The squad has no injury blows and Halmstad will be able to field a strong squad for the fifth game in a row, a dream for the manager.
AIK is a team that is expected to be on a place among the five first teams. In order to do that they need to have a healthy squad but for the moment that is not the case in AIK. AIK is one of the more troublesome clubs in the league for the moment. Their coach Richard Money left the club already after three games since there was some kind of problems in the club. What has been said in the papers is that the board did not let him choose how to form the team and in the end he felt that it was hard to get things working under those premises. Now AIK has a coach duo consisting of Nebosja Novakovic and Patrick Englund who both are former players in the club. It is hard to say how they will handle a team with many former team mates and since they also are quite inexperienced as coaches this can easily turn out to be a very tricky period for AIK. AIK’s play so far this season has been bad. They have a bad habit of loosing their play when going ahead. In the first game at home against Sundsvall they won 1-0 but it was Sundsvall who had the best play after AIK’s first goal and a draw would have been more fair. The same happened in the last game away to Örgryte, where AIK were up 1-0 but then could not stand up against Örgryte who equalised before half time, and then was closest to steal all three points. Unfortunately for AIK they have had to start the new season with two of their best players missing; striker and Swedish international Andreas Andersson is out with injury and talented midfielder Stefan Ishizaki is out on loan until end of June. To this game the injury situation is very bad. They have three strikers out injured; Andreas Eriksson, Arash Talebinejad and Daniel Hoch. Also important defender Per Nilsson and technical player and one of last year’s most important players Mats Rubarth are doubtful. Since the injury situation has become worse there will be rearrangements in AIK and of course this will not make them safer in their appearance. And one more thing: AIK lost against Brage from Superettan (Div 1 in Sweden) in the Swedish cup last week after a terrible display where the players looked very uninterested. Worth to mention is that Brage is expected to be in the bottom of Superettan.
An injury hit AIK will have difficulties to win here and instead we think that Halmstad has big chances of grabbing their second away win or at least manage a draw. We propose 3% on an Asian handicap bet +0,25 on Halmstad meaning that we make a small profit even if the match ends with a draw.
Recent games for home team
|
2004-04-22 |
Örgryte-AIK |
1-1 |
|
2004-04-18 |
AIK-Trelleborg |
0-0 |
|
2004-04-13 |
Djurgården-AIK |
3-1 |
|
2004-04-04 |
AIK-Sundsvall |
1-0 |
Recent games for away team
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2004-04-25 |
Halmstad-Helsingborg |
3-2 |
|
2004-04-19 |
IFK Göteborg-Halmstad |
0-0 |
|
2004-04-09 |
Halmstad-Trelleborg |
1-0 |
|
2004-04-05 |
Örebro-Halmstad |
2-5 |
Home table
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AIK |
2 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
1-0 |
4 |
Away table
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Halmstad |
2 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
5-2 |
4 |
Links for this game
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// SportsObserver 040503
