Thursday Football Cheat Sheet: Best bets for World Cup qualifying play-offs | OneFootball

Get the best bets for Thursday's international football

The World Cup qualifying play-offs being for European teams on Thursday, with Wales, Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland all in action, so get our experts' best bets...

17:00 - Turkey v Romania: Turkey too strong at home

Paul Higham: Turkey are big 1/3 home favourites here as they chase a first World Cup since 2002 and their home form is more than good enough to beat Romania - with Spain the only away winners in a 10-game unbeaten home streak. Looking wider and Turkey's only four defeats in 21 home internationals has been to top sides Spain, Portugal, Croatia and Italy. Romania aren't in that league.

Romania have scored in eight straight away games but Turkey have far more firepower to call upon - and while five of their last six have gone over 3.5 goals at the same price I'm plumping for the visitors to get on the scoresheet even if in a losing cause.

19:45 - Wales v Bosnia: Back Dragon to keep firing in Cardiff

Opta Stat: Wales have won five of their last six home competitive matches, scoring 20 goals and netting at least two goals in each of their last five on home soil. Their 7-1 win over North Macedonia in November was the first time they'd scored seven in a game since October 1978 in a 7-0 win over Malta.

19:45 - Italy v Northern Ireland: Don't expect Azzurri to run riot

Jack Critchley: Michael O'Neill, who has also been managing relegation-threatened Blackburn in the Championship over the last couple of months, is perfectly aware of his team's limitations, but he is able to organise his players and make it tough for opponents. Across their last four qualifiers, they conceded just twice, denying Slovakia until stoppage time, and preventing Germany from adding to their one goal advantage.

They have been notoriously tricky opponents for Italy previously, and this high-stakes contest is likely to result in a tight and edgy affair. With the crushing loss to North Macedonia still imprinted in the minds of many Italian football fans, being drawn against a team who are effective at 'parking the bus' is arguably the worst possible outcome for the hosts.

Nevertheless, Italy were fairly impressive throughout the qualifying process, although two hiccups against Norway pushed them into the play-offs, denying them an opportunity to book their place at the 48-team tournament. In the three homes that they were expected to win, vs Isreal, Estonia and Moldova, they failed to make the breakthrough until at least the 40th minute, and it took until the 58th to break Estonia's resistance.

19:45 - Czechia v Republic of Ireland: Back Parrott to strike again

Kevin Hatchard: Roma striker Evan Ferguson is still out with injury, so Troy Parrott will lead the attack. The former Tottenham forward has scored 27 goals this term for Dutch club AZ, including four in his last four matches. Key midfielder Josh Cullen is out injured, but veteran Robbie Brady returns after missing the qualifying campaign...

Parrott is in the form of his life for club and country, and has scored five goals across his last two internationals, delivering when his country needed him. He is a hefty 5/2 to score at any time here, and given that he's probably the penalty taker, that feels like an attractive price to me.

Paul Higham: Denmark suffered the biggest collapse in qualifying with a home draw to Belarus then that dramatic defeat in Scotland costing them an automatic spot, so despite being huge 1/4 fancies they've got some demons to bury. North Macedonia may be 10/1 shots but they only lost once in their group, albeit a 7-1 thrashing in Wales, and drew away at Belgium so they could play a decent spoiler role.

The Danes also have plenty of defensive injury absences and with their last five games going over 2.5 goals they may have to score a few to win this so we'll back a little bit of a goalfest.