FC Krasnodar v FC Tosno Betting Tips: Home side to be untroubled

This Russian Premier League match sees two of the more recently founded clubs in the country take each other on as Krasnodar, founded in 2008, host Tosno, established in 2013. Both of these teams have climbed up the ranks in unbelievably quick fashion since their creation.

This is Krasnodar’s seventh consecutive season in the top flight and they are known as one of the more stable Russian clubs. As well as looking to finish well in the Russian Premier League, Krasnodar are looking to make a bigger impact in European football this time around. The Bulls got their domestic campaign off to a good start last weekend as they defied the odds to record a win at Rubin Kazan.

Perhaps the most surprising part of this victory in Kazan was that it came without talismanic striker Fedor Smolov, who is injured. With speculation surrounding the Russian international’s future, it will please manager Igor Shalimov to know that his side can cope without their main asset. Ricardo Laborde took full advantage of Smolov’s absence to score twice against Rubin last time out. In addition to their decent frontline, Krasnodar have a good defence and they have managed to keep hold of their decent core of defensive players together for the time being.

The Black-Greens were very solid at home last term, losing just once on their own patch. In fact, Krasnodar have lost just two Premier League games on home turf since 26th July 2015 – both to Lokomotiv Moscow. Additionally, they kept clean sheets in 48% of their home league matches last season.

Like Krasnodar, Tosno have garnered much praise for the way they have rocketed up the leagues, all whilst keeping themselves financial stable – seemingly a difficult thing to do in Russian football. Unfortunately though, they suffered defeat in their debut top flight match with a 1-0 loss at home to Ufa.

Dmytro Parfenov’s men were excellent at both ends of the pitch last campaign with 63 goals scored and just 30 conceded as they secured second place in the FNL. However, they have not added to their squad too much in this transfer window and the players, who performed so well in the second tier, may struggle to adapt to life in the top flight. This certainly looked to be the case in their opener against Ufa.

Tosno travelled very well towards the end of last season, losing just one of their final ten league games – keeping seven clean sheets in the process. However, as mentioned previously, the top flight is a different kettle of fish to the FNL.

Krasnodar are the favourites here and, despite Tosno’s great away form last season, I do not see them getting anything against Igor Shalimov’s men. The home side have an excellent defence whilst Tosno’s attack looks like it could really struggle this season. Krasnodar to Win to Nil is priced at a profitable 15/13.