Inter - AC Oulu tonight

Inter : Monsalve – Lehtonen - Gomez – Nyman – Aho – Sanevuori - Antunez-Mäkitalo - Kennedy – Paajanen – Grot?

Oulu: Rodrigues – Hurme – Hietanen – Meriläinen – Kukka – Majava – Nurmela – Pennanen – Yobe – NgambeNgambe - Jonke

LIVE STREAM ;

The injuries of Bantamoi, Ojala, and Kauko and Furuholm´s suspension made picturing the line-up a bit difficult, and the new Veikkausliiga.com – pages do not help as they give only 10 names for Inter.

There are problems now at all areas at Inter. Monsalve has not been a bad keeper but not a winning goalie either. The center-defence pair is not ideal and has not been the backbone it should be, the midfield is neither creative enough nor hard enough, and as a striker Grot is hardly doing his job because he very rarely scores. The season is only in the beginning, but it is time to start winning in the league if they want to fight for top spots, and at this match Inter are at their weakest as also Ojala is injured and there is no set-piece specialist in the team.

The market have moved into Inter´s direction as expected, but it is not the right direction. They are still the favourites to win the match because of AC Oulu´s poor away performances result-wise, but they would have deserved at least a point from Haka, they took a point from MyPa away and Inter today are not any better, but much more under mental pressure with weakened squad.

We have discussed Inter several times, at best they are a top team and play entertaining football and contol the game, but last time they really showed to be at their best was 2009 in the cup final. Their latest home win dates back to March when they won MIFK 2-1, and even that was something they did not fully deserve.

AC Oulu looked like they are on a downswing after a good pre-season and a league cup and it is probably true they are not going to win too many away games, but this could be one of them. Inter today with this line-up are a C – class team at best, and there is not much more than the home advantage to separate them. Oulu have stayed overnight at nearby Pori and come with fresh legs, Inter had the 120 minutes cup game at KPV on Thursday.

Oulu goalie Rodrigues is not to my liking and there are some serious doubts about some other players qualities as well, but the idea of backing Oulu is really to bet against todays´s Inter Turku.We have the +0,75 hc after all. Limit for that was at 1.70

The stats in the league are identical before the match. I would not be surprised if they are identical also after the match.

Players to watch:

Inter left-back Henri Lehtonen, let us say that he is very ”active”. Home fans love him and probably his mother does too. I am not so sure about the the rest of the veikkausliiga players.

Inter winger Kennedy. He is in charge of scoring in the absence of proper strikers.

Ac Oulu: Mf Mika Nurmela. A long career in Germany and in the NT, came back home last season and has good free-kicks.

Joonas Pennanen: a future talent.

We can discuss this LIVE at the blog if you so wish, I will post some thoughts here