PAOK Thessaloniki vs BATE Borisov Predictions

PAOK’s Europa League campaign hasn’t exactly gone to plan, though the Greeks are still in with a shout of being in the knockouts. Having beaten BATE in the reverse fixture, a win in this final group match would likely see the hosts advance in second place.

It has been a rather miserable campaign for PAOK, though the hosts will fancy themselves to get the desired result on Thursday. There’s been little for the Greeks to get excited about, though their one pleasing performance came against this opponent away from home, so they couldn’t have asked for a better game to end on.

When the teams met in the reverse fixture, PAOK won by four goals to one. The score-line was a little misleading, as there wasn’t really enough attacking quality on show to merit the net being found on five separate occasions, though Răzvan Lucescu’s men were deserving winners, as they force the issue, created the better opportunities, showed the better end-product and came out of the game with a pleasing expected goal difference of +1.22. A repeat of that showing would surely see the Greeks come out on top at Toumba Stadium on Thursday evening.

As for the visitors, well, it’s been very hard to get excited by anything that BATE have done in Group L. The Belarusians have found it tough to impose themselves offensively, as an average of 0.67 expected-goals for suggests, while they’ve not been anywhere near good enough at the back to get away with such attacking deficiencies.

With BATE lacking in forward power, this is very much PAOK’s game to win, though we shouldn’t expect too much, despite the score-line in the reverse fixture. The Greeks certainly did deserve to come out on top on that occasion, but if we consider that they’ve done very little going forward overall in Group L, then a repeat of that showing seems unlikely.

What the reverse fixture tells us is that PAOK have got more about them than their visitors, but not so much more that they should be expected to run away with this fixture. At the prices, the bet that stands out is ‘PAOK to Win & Under 3.5 Goals’. A repeat of the 1.58 expected goals for posted in Belarus would likely see the hosts record a relatively straightforward victory without going overboard.