African Nations Cup Quarter-Finals: Shocks and thrills on cards in Egypt

African Nations Cup Quarter-Finals: Shocks and thrills on cards in Egypt

Having made a healthy profit on the tournament so far, James Eastham previews the second day of quarter-final action, taking place on Thursday- According lớn the soccer tips betting page!

Goals at both ends the smart bet

Ivory Coast vs Algeria

Thursday 11 July, 17:00 BST

Live on Eurosport 2

We backed Algeria before the tournament began and the Fennecs have been the best team in the competition. They were 14.00 to lift the trophy when we flagged them up and are now trading as 4.60 second favourites behind Senegal.

The significant change in price means you could lay off Algeria lớn lock in a small profit but we prefer lớn let our bet run. Algeria are 2.28 to claim victory in 90 minutes in this quarter-final clash, with Ivory Coast 3.80 and The Draw 3.10.

There are plenty of reasons to support Algeria. They've won four out of four games, scoring nine goals and conceding none. Virtually every member of their highly settled starting line-up has played well, and they have tremendous quality on the bench, too: Napoli winger Adam Ounas is the tournament's three-goal joint-top scorer despite spending only 88 minutes on the pitch. You can prefer to the soccer predictions lớn share with us!

Ivory Coast have yet to play to their potential but it would be foolish lớn write them off. They laboured to a 1-0 win over Mali in the second round but they have tremendous individual quality in attack and it's starting to show: for example, Wilfried Zaha has scored in each of their past two games and will be the danger man here.

Given the attacking pedigree of these two sides the chances of there being goals are underrated. The price of 2.90 Over 2.5 Goals reflects the fact that only 10 of 44 (23%) games in the tournament have had over 2.5 goals but it's worth noting that Over hai.5 Goals occurred in three of eight last-16 clashes.

We prefer 'Yes' in the Both teams to Score market at an odds-against price, however. We don't believe Algeria's clean-sheets record can go on forever, and Ivory Coast have the firepower to end it. An Algeria line-up containing Riyad Mahrez (two goals), in-form Youcef Belail (two goals) and Baghdad Bounedjah should also be able to find the net in normal time.