Montenegro vs Romania Predictions

• Montenegro’s only home wins in their last seven competitive home contests came against Cyprus and Gibraltar.
• Romania have won five, drawn three and lost five of their competitive away internationals over the past two years.
• Romania have kept six clean sheets in their last seven competitive games.

Romania’s record suggest they are worthy of tentative support

Romania’s defensive record from last year’s World Cup qualifying games suggest they will be a tough nut for Montenegro to crack in Saturday’s Nations League B Group 4 clash in Podgorica.  The Tricolours kept six clean sheets in their final seven fixtures, three of which came on the road while even free-scoring Germany were given a scare in a 2-1 loss in Hamburg.

Edward Iordănescu has given this moderately talented group – that bear no resemblance to Romania’s golden generation of the 1990s – the opportunity to generate some confidence at this level. Emphasising the counter-attack, he has made them as hard to break down as possible. As a consequence, their away results look a bit better than their home ones do because they can be faced with similar tactics from their guests in Bucharest.

Montenegro will struggle to create much here based on their recent displays, which include a 1-0 friendly win over Greece and a 1-0 defeat away to Armenia. The hosts are without their best defender and organiser – Atletico Madrid’s Stefan Savic – through injury and his absence could prove tough to overcome.

One goal might be enough for the win

The Brave Falcons’ only home wins in their last seven competitive home contests came against Cyprus and Gibraltar and this is a notable step up in class for them. They did hold the Netherlands to a 2-2 draw at home back in November, but this game will be nothing like that as Romania probably won’t come at them in the same way.

We’re tempted to back Romania to earn a clean sheet here given they have been so hard to score against of late, but a safer approach might be to take the visitors as a draw no bet proposition. With only five defeats in their last 13 away trips, two of which were against elite nations Spain and Germany, we feel out stake money would be safely invested in the Romanians.

A 1-0 victory for Iordănescu’s side is our forecast for the full-time result as we note that there have only been four goals scored in total across the last four meetings between the nations.