Red Bull Salzburg vs Dinamo Zagreb Prediction: Sides to serve up goals in Salzburg

Two winless sides in the Uefa Champions League go head-to-head in Austria on Wednesday (20:00, TNT Sports 9) as Red Bull Salzburg host Dinamo Zagreb at the Red Bull Arena.

Below you can find my Red Bull Salzburg vs Dinamo Zagreb prediction, complete with all the latest team news and match odds, ahead of this league phase contest between Die Roten Bullen and the Blues.

Team News

Red Bull Salzburg are missing a whole host of injured first-team stars including Petar Ratkov, Moussa Yeo, Dorgeles Nene, Takumu Kawamura and Fernando, but defender Amar Dedic was fit enough to feature from the bench in Saturday's 2-1 win over Altach and could retake his place in the starting XI on Wednesday.

Liverpool loanee Stefan Bajcetic and Israel international Oscar Gloukh were both restricted to substitute outings at Altach but both could make Pep Lijnders' lineup from the beginning in midweek, while Lucas Gourna-Douath is another looking for a start after remaining rooted to the bench at the weekend.

Bajectic's former Reds teammate, Bobby Clark, could be one of those who drops out of the starting XI to make way for the likes of Gloukh.

Football Odds

Dinamo Zagreb aren't suffering from the same injury issues as their opponents, though Dino Peric and Ivan Nevistic are both unlikely to make Wednesday's match.

Head coach Nenad Bjelica, meanwhile, will serve a one-match touchline ban for his theatrics in the 2-2 league phase draw with AS Monaco earlier this month.

Bruno Petkovic, who scored Dinamo's first league phase goal of the campaign in a 9-2 defeat at Bayern Munich last month, came off the bench in Saturday's 2-2 draw with Istra in the Croatian Football League and could begin the game in Salzburg.

Red Bull Salzburg vs Dinamo Zagreb Odds

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Salzburg are 4/5 to get off the mark in the Champions League with a victory on Wednesday, giving the Austrian side an implied win probability of 55.6%, while Dinamo are 16/5, or a 23.8% chance, to move off one point and on to four.

The draw is available at 3/1, both teams to score at 8/15 and over 3.5 total goals at 1/1, while Salzburg's Karim Konate (5/4) leads the anytime goalscorer market, with Petkovic (21/10) shortest priced for the visitors.

Total Goals - Over 3.5 @ 11/8

Goals have tended to follow these sides this season, so I'm expecting plenty of strikes in Salzburg on Wednesday.

Including Champions League qualifiers, Die Roten Bullen have played 16 times under the tutelage of Lijnders and have seen over 3.5 goals land in half (eight) of them. Four of those instances occurred in Salzburg's first five games, including a thrilling 3-3 with Dutch side Twente in August, while the most recent was the 5-0 thrashing at the hands of Sturm Graz earlier this month.

Defensive disarray aside, questions marks have also started to arise over Salzburg's attack which has been blunted in two of their three matches this month, including the 4-0 home defeat to Brest in the Champions League.

However, that was the first time under Lijnders that Salzburg had failed to score at the Red Bull Arena, and they have struck at least twice in four of the other five home matches under the Dutchman.

Dinamo, meanwhile, have seen both of their Champions League games this term finish with at least four goals, the most recent being the 2-2 draw with Monaco in Zagreb on October 2, which was a creditable result for the Croatians.

Less creditable was Bayern Munich's 9-2 annihilation of Dinamo at the Allianz Arena last month, when Harry Kane & co. ran riot in Bavaria. That was the first of four games in their last seven that the Blues have conceded at least twice in a match, the most recent being Saturday's 2-2 draw at Istra.

Both Salzburg and Dinamo will be looking to secure their first league phase win on Wednesday if they each harbour any ambition of progressing to the net phase of the tournament, and that should lend itself to an exciting encounter in Austria, where we could see at least four goals struck.

Match Result & BTTS - Red Bull Salzburg & Yes @ 2/1

A real tricky one to predict this, but I'm going to stick my neck out and back the hosts to come through this battle with all three points.

Lijnders made a positive start at Salzburg, going unbeaten in his first eight games as boss and masterminding his side's progress to the league phase of the Champions League.

However, he suffered his first defeat in charge on September 1, losing 3-2 in the Austrian Bundesliga to Rapid Wien, and that result was followed by a 3-0 loss at Sparta Prague in the Champions League on the other side of the international break.

Salzburg made it three without a win when they drew 0-0 at Tirol on September 22 and after beating Wiener Viktoria (4-0) and Austria Vienna (2-0) in back-to-back games, Die Roten Bullen were brought back down to earth with a thump as they were thrashed at home by Brest before enduring an even more painful scoreline away to Sturm Graz.

It looked like three bad defeats without a goal on the spin on Saturday as Altach took the lead in the 59th minute through Lukas Fridrikas, and it wasn't until the 84th minute when Konate found an equaliser before Edmund Baidoo secured a vital victory for Lijnders' side.

The hope now will be that Saturday's success can lay the foundations for a strong run of results that pull them back within reach of Austrian Bundesliga leaders Sturm Graz and those towards the mid and upper tier of the Champions League league phase.

Certainly, Salzburg should be beating Dinamo at home if they want to achieve anything in Europe this season, especially with trips to Rotterdam (Feyenoord) and Leverkusen (Bayer Leverkusen) next up for the club in the Champions League.

Dinamo are unlikely to go down without a fight, despite unravelling at Bayern's home last month, as they showed what they are all about in their stalemate with Monaco earlier this month.

I expect the visitors to get on the scoresheet in Austria, possibly even twice, but the home side's firepower should see them outgun the Croatians in this one.

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