Belgium vs. Netherlands Predictions: Memphis a huge price in the shots market

Belgium face the Netherlands in the Nations League on Friday night on what looks like the pick of the fixtures from the six-game slate. We’ve previewed the action and provided you with our best bets for the match that will take place in Brussels and can be seen live on Premier Sports 1, kicking off at 19:45.

Belgium and the Netherlands are in League A Group 4, for this renewal of the Nations League with Poland and Wales being their two other slides in their group who they will face. Heading into their first game of the tournament Belgium are the current third-favourites to lift the Nations League trophy, priced at 7/1 to do so next summer, with Friday’s opposition slightly bigger in the outright winner market at 12/1. 

Roberto Martinez’s side suffered defeats in this competition to both France and Italy in October 2021, although since then they have gone unbeaten in four, albeit against a lower quality of opposition. The Red Devils have fared well against the Netherlands in previous meetings winning three and drawing five of the last eight. 

Since Louis van Gaal returned to the Dutch national team, the Oranje have gone an impressive nine games unbeaten dishing out a couple of thrashings in World Cup qualification when putting six goals past both Turkey and Gibraltar. We have two of Europe’s big hitters facing off in Brussels on Friday and we think this should be an exciting encounter with plenty of attacking talent on display.

The first selection we are highlighting on Friday is with bet365 and comes from the player markets, where we are fancying Memphis Depay to have Over 1.5 shots in the match. This is priced at an incredibly generous 5/6 at the time of writing, implying a 55% chance of this selection landing. 

No player scored more goals than the Dutchman in the European World Cup qualifying stage for the forthcoming tournament in Qatar. Over the course of World Cup 2022 qualifying, Depay played ten matches and scored a hefty 12 goals, level with England’s Harry Kane.

Over those ten matches the Barcelona forward averaged a whopping 5.81 shots per 90 minutes and he also scored in a friendly for the Netherlands back in March against Denmark. A player who is potentially on the move this summer and will want to put his services in the shop window, we expect him to have a big game against Belgium.

Looking back at Depay’s recent shot data for van Gaal’s side and in his last six competitive starts, he has registered shot totals of 6,4,7,5,6,6. Those impressive figures did come against lower quality teams than Belgium in, Norway, Montenegro (x2), Gibraltar, Latvia and Turkey, but we still feel the price of 5/6 is way too big for him to have two or more in this Nations League tie. It would be no surprise to see Bookmakers such as Betfair and Paddy Power have this same selection at around 1/5 or shorter as they release their markets in the coming days.

As mentioned earlier, we think this could be quite a good game for the neutral with a good few goals scored. Six of the last seven meetings between Belgium and Netherlands have brought joy for both teams to score backers, but at 4/6 we think that looks a little short this time round. 

Instead, we’ve opted for a 9/1 longshot from the anytime scorer market that is available with 10bet. Denzel Dumfries is the player we have taken a lean towards here who we think looks a tad overpriced considering he has three goals in his last 10 competitive starts for Netherlands. Dumfries also scored five goals in 21 starts for Inter Milan this season as they were pipped to the Serie A title by city rivals Milan. The attacking minded wing-back averaged 1.79 shots per 90 minutes for his club last season and we believe he can get on the scoresheet for the Dutch here. 

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