Italy v Scotland

Only an extreme optimist would give any hope to the Scots in Milan this weekend. Walter Smith's first match in charge will be a real baptism of fire and to compound his worries he is without a lot of key players. Dickov, McFadden and no Darren Fletcher are all out of the starting line up and their experience will be missed. Scotland, like Wales are embarking on a rebuilding exercise at the moment and you have to come to the conclusion that they will just no be good enough to hold back the Italians. Stan James bet Italy 1/6, The Draw 4/1, Scotland 14/1. The Italians look supremely confident at the moment. They have never lacked confidence but they have a swagger about them recently that says that they will be mounting a serious challenge for the World Cup. At 1/6 they are at pretty short odds, but they are 2/5 to be winning at half time and full time and this seems a better proposition. The Italians are not overly prolific scorers but over two goals at 8/11 could be an option. They are quite capable of scoring a hatful with the talent on show. It looks like Totti (11/4) and Cassano (4/1) will start up front. Italy not to score is 7/1 if you are feeling brave. If you take the view that Scotland will not have the ammunition to score, then you might want to look at betting the correct scores of Italy 2-0 (11/2), Italy 3-0 (7/1), Italy 4-0 (8/1), Italy 5-0 (14/1). It's difficult to see where a goal is going to come from for Scotland. Stephen Crawford and Kenny Miller are both 12/1 to score first. The Italians are a strong unit at the minute and the Scots will have to play out of their skins just to hold out. The 0-0 draw is an option at 9/1. But even the hardened members of the Tartan Army could not see a win here. The Italians are simply better in all departments and you suspect their class will tell sooner or later.Get a free twenty five pound bet from StanJamesGet a free fifty pound bet on VCBet