Ukraine vs Sweden Prediction: Blagult’s poor form opens the door for Ukraine

Ukraine and Sweden meet in Valencia for their Uefa World Cup play-off semi-final on Thursday (19:45 GMT, Prime Video). The side who progresses will face the winner of Poland vs Albania next week for a place at the big dance this summer.

Sweden will be hoping for improvements after a poor group campaign, while Ukraine head into this clash in decent form. Read on for my Ukraine vs Sweden predictions, alongside the latest team news and match odds.

Team News

Ruslan Malinovskyi and Yukhym Konoplia are suspended for Ukraine following an accumulation of bookings.The former could be a big loss given he contributed three goals and an assist in his side's qualifying group.

Striker Artem Dovbyk (groin) and defender Oleksandr Zinchenko (knee) are unavailable due to injury.

Football Odds

Alexander Isak (leg), Emil Krafth (knee), Viktor Johansson (shoulder) and Dejan Kulusevski (knee) are all missing for Sweden because of their respective injuries, but they do have Viktor Gyokeres to spearhead their attack.

Graham Potter has had a few months to prepare for this crunch clash but he needs to find goal contributions from the resources available.

Yasin Ayari was the only player to register more than one involvement in the Blagult's qualifying group. However, his goal and assist came all the way back in the very first fixture against Slovenia in September.

Ukraine vs Sweden Odds

Ukraine are 2/1 to win this tie inside 90 minutes, and they have won three of their past four matches.

Sweden's last outing was a draw against Slovenia, with the stalemate here marketed at 23/10. Potter's team are a 7/5 bet to triumph in regulation time.

Four of the previous five meetings have gone under 2.5 goals, which is priced at 8/11 for Thursday.

Today's Football Fixtures

Match Result - Ukraine @ 2/1

Sweden may like the idea of this contest being at a neutral venue but I wouldn't say it's a good thing. Ukraine are used to playing their 'home' matches all over Europe and they have built up good momentum ahead of this semi-final.

Three wins from four puts them in an excellent position against Sweden, who had a terrible time of it in their qualifying group as they failed to win a single game. This saw Jon Dahl Tomasson replaced by Potter during the campaign and the former West Ham United and Chelsea boss has his work cut out to navigate his squad through these play-offs.

Sweden are fortunate to be in this position, with their Uefa Nations League performance having brought them this far, but it doesn't change the fact that they are coming into this fixture in hideous form from their qualifying group. For that reason, I am confident Ukraine will progress to the final and 2/1 (implied probability of 33.3%) offers great value to punters.

Both Teams To Score - Yes @ 5/6

Even though Sweden are in a weak position ahead of this match, I still think they will have a role to play in this semi-final. The Blagult have a prolific goalscorer in Gyokeres, who will carry the weight of expectation on his shoulders seeing as fellow attacker Isak is injured. Can he handle the pressure?

I believe both teams to score is worth covering on Thursday because it has been a winning selection in three of the past four meetings between the sides. There have also been goals at both ends in three of Ukraine's previous five qualifiers.

Sweden travel to Valencia off the back of two games in which both teams failed to keep a clean sheet.

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