The Goalscorer Gamble: Zlatan to punish the Irish

 

Dan Fitch turns his attention to Friday's international fixtures and picks out five likely goalscorers, including Sweden's in-form Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

 

It's an international edition of the Goalscorer Gamble today, as we look towards the likely scorers in Friday's World Cup qualifiers.

 

Now scoring in internationals is an entirely different discipline from scoring in club football. Not everyone can do both.

 

Take Ian Wright for instance. Lethal for Crystal Palace and Arsenal, yet couldn't hit a barn door for England. David Nugent is the opposite. 100% goals per game record for England. 100% not good enough for the Premier League at club level.

 

One player who is having no problems scoring for both club and country right now is Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but it wasn't always the case.

 

Ibrahimovic has scored 39 goals in 86 games for Sweden. It's a good record, but not a brilliant one.

 

Yet Zlatan's goals per game ratio has improved dramatically over the last year. In 2012, Ibrahimovic scored 11 goals for Sweden in eight games, including four against England. Back him at 2.0 to score his first international goal of 2013 against the Republic of Ireland.

 

For our first goalscorer pick we look towards Holland's match at home to Estonia. Among the favourites in the market is a player who is not as famous as your Robin van Persie, but is quickly making a name for himself.

 

The Ajax forward Jeremain Lens scored on his Holland debut back in 2010, but has only recently become a regular in the team under Louis van Gaal.

 

His goalscoring record now stands at five in nine appearances. Lens has opened the scoring in three of Holland's last five games and we're going to back him to open the scoring against Estonia at 4.5.

 

Another player who is in hot international goalscoring form like Lens and Ibrahimovic, is Germany's Mesut Ozil.

 

The Real Madrid playmaker has a decent record of 14 goals in 44 internationals, but five of those goals have came in four successive matches that took place in September and October of 2012.

 

Ozil is on penalty taking duty for his nation these days and with the team likely to score plenty against Kazakhstan, the 2.05 on offer for him to find the net at any time is worth taking.

 

One of the most reliable international goalscorers right now is Pedro of Spain. The Barcelona wide man has an impressive 11 in 24 games and nine of those came in his last five appearances.

 

Pedro has closed the scoring in three of those matches. Let's back him to repeat the trick at odds of 5.5.

 

Finally, we head to Northern Ireland for their game against Russia, but don't worry, because we're not going to tip any of the home side's players.

 

No, it's Russia we're interested in and in particular Roman Shirikov. The Zenit midfielder boasts 11 goals in 31 games, which is particularly impressive considering that he spent a period of his career playing as a central defender.

 

Shirikov scored seven of his international goals in 2012 and was again on target in Russia's 2-0 win over Iceland back in February. He is another penalty taker and we're backing him at odds of 3.0 to score against a Northern Irish team who he was on target against earlier in the qualifying campaign.

 

Recommended Bets

Best Bet: Back Zlatan Ibrahimovic to score @ 2.0

Back Jeremain Lens to score first @ 4.5

Back Mesut Ozil to score @ 2.05

Back Pedro to score last @ 5.5

Back Roman Shirikov to score @ 3.0

 

Bet HERE

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