H2H: Oleksandriya vs. St Etienne – Prediction (Europa League

Preview and Teams Comparison.

St Etienne’s Gabriel Silva scored at both ends in the 1-1 draw in the reverse fixture against Oleksandria, giving St Etienne the lead after eight minutes before an own goal six minutes later.

Oleksandriya have a poor record in the UEFA Europa League (UEL), with just one win across their nine historical fixtures (W1, D4, L4 – including qualifiers). Nothing if not consistent though, they have scored exactly one goal in each of their previous six UEL games. Artem Sitalo scored his third competitive goal of the campaign in Oleksandriya’s last UEL home match. Each strike arrived after the break. Furthermore, Oleksandriya have failed to score in just one of their seven Ukrainian Premier League (UPL) home fixtures this season. Scoring first could be a game decider in any case, as the Ukrainian outfit have won five of the six UPL home games to see them score the opening goal (W5, L1).

Oleksandriya’s UPL fixtures this term have averaged just 0.46 first-half goals per fixture – a league low. Both sides have seen the opening goal scored inside the first 20 minutes, in each of their combined six UEL games this campaign. St Étienne have seen only one side score in each of their three competitive trips to Ukraine (W1, L2).

St Étienne make the trip to Ukraine unbeaten in each of their last seven competitive fixtures (W4, D3). However, ‘Les Verts’ remain winless in this UEL campaign (D2, L1), and the fact that they’ve lost each of their last two road trips in the competition will concern coach Claude Puel. St Étienne’s first scorer in his three goalscoring games to date this term, Denis Bouanga has netted three goals in L1 so far. In addition, St Étienne have kept just one clean sheet across their last nine away UEL games (including qualifiers). Domestically, they have won both of their last two Ligue 1 (L1) away fixtures and, significantly, four of their last six league outings have yielded a 1-0 victory.