Against All Odds: No party at Lahti for the champs

13May 2013

Betfair

HJK Helsinki are odds-on for their trip to Lahti this afternoon but Paul Robinson thinks the Finnish Veikkausliiga champions could be in for a difficult match.

Lahti have made a solid start to their league campaign with five points from their opening four fixtures. They are 10th of 12 but they have games in hand and it won't be long before they're much higher up the table. The Finnish season traditionally begins with the League Cup and Lahti actually ended up lifting the trophy at the beginning of April, so they clearly have a decent set of players.

Tommi Kautonen's side fell to a 2-0 defeat at Inter Turku last Thursday but prior to that they beat KuPS at home. That was their only league game at Lahti Stadium this season and they've traditionally been strong there, finishing last year with nine wins out of 10, including a 3-0 drubbing of today's opponents.

HJK are back on top of the pile even at this early stage of the campaign. They haven't performed well in the cups though as they were knocked out of the Suomen by RoPS and the League Cup at the hands of JJK.

Sixten Boström is the new man in charge this year and the pressure is on to deliver the club's fifth straight league title. He's opened up with three wins and two draws but they were held to a 0-0 at home last week and they also drew at Inter Turku seven days previous. Even though they won the league last term they were prone to poor results on the road, including a spell where they picked up just four points from a possible 21.

HJK may go on to win this match but I wouldn't want to be backing them at odds-on. Lahti are a decent outfit, so with Helsinki trading around the 1.86 mark, I have to make them my lay of the day.

Recommended Bet

Lay HJK Helsinki v Lahti @ 1.86