FC Aarau v FC Wil (Challenge League)

High-flying FC Aarau welcome FC Wil to Brugglifeld on Saturday with both sides at different ends of the Challenge League table.

It was another impressive weekend for Aarau as they dismantled lowly SC Kriens at Kleinfeld, scoring five goals and making it three wins in a row in the process. The victory takes them to the top of the table, two points clear of Winterthur and they are also now unbeaten in their last eight games. A return to the Super League for the first time in seven years looks good.

FC Wil’s narrow 3-2 victory at home to Schaffhausen was a much-needed boost for a side that has struggled since the departure of coach Alex Frei to Winterthur and were winless in their previous five. There have now been fifty-four goals in the last eleven FC Wil league games. Entertainment is not in short supply.

Despite all those goals, I’m expecting Aarau to get the better of FC Wil at Brugglifeld. The home side have kept four clean sheets in their last five and are in excellent form. FC Wil aren’t quite as free-scoring away from home and simply concede too many to be a credible threat to the league leaders.

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Stade Lausanne-Ouchy v Vaduz (Challenge League)

Stade Lausanne-Ouchy continue to show off their never-say-die attitude in the Challenge League in recent weeks. They had to come from behind at home to bottom club SC Kriens two weeks ago and then snatched a point in the closing minutes of their away match with Neuchatel Xamax last Friday night. With only one defeat in their last five, they are very much in contention of breaking into the top-half of the table.

Vaduz bounced back from their damaging 4-2 defeat away at Schaffhausen by recording a 2-0 home win in the principality over Yverdon-Sport. Despite only one defeat in their last eight matches, Vaduz find themselves three points behind Aarau at the top and one point adrift of Winterthur in the promotion play-off spot, mainly due to their inconsistent form away from the Rheinpark. 

While the side from Liechtenstein concede few goals at home, they are much leakier defensively. They conceded four goals to Wil and Schaffhausen in consecutive games, haven’t kept a clean sheet in five matches and only one all season. As for SLO, they are a stubborn side at home and have conceded only eleven goals at the Pontaise, nine of which came in their last three games.

Vaduz are a better team than SLO and have scored in 9 out of 11 away matches this season, but they can’t stop conceding goals either. They should have the quality to score in this match but I think SLO will take advantage of their porous defence once again.

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Neuchatel Xamax v SC Kriens (Challenge League)

Neuchatel Xamax have experienced an up-and-down season so far. They started their campaign with five wins from seven before enduring seven defeats from their next eleven matches and now find themselves on a four-match unbeaten run with creditable draws away to Yverdon and Aarau. Xamax may be down in eighth, but they are a mammoth twenty-four points clear of relegation and still have ambitions of breaking into the top half.

The sorry tale of SC Kriens this season is one that gets worse with each passing week. They were heavily beaten by Aarau at home last weekend and have now lost ten games in a row, scoring just four goals and conceding twenty-eight. With only six points to their name, they sit twenty-two points behind ninth position and will return to the third-tier of Swiss football after a four-year spell in the Challenge League.

Xamax have won both meetings this season and it won’t be a surprise to anyone if they can make it three wins on Friday evening. There is little value in a straight victory over Kriens in their current predicament, so Over 2.5 Goals is the better option. Kriens concede an average of three goals per game away from home and this has landed in eight of their eleven games this season on their travels.

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FC Schaffhausen v FC Winterthur (Challenge League)

FC Schaffhausen continued their excellent home form in the Challenge League with their narrow 1-0 victory over FC Thun on Tuesday. They have seven wins and four draws from their eleven matches at the Wefox Arena and sit alongside Super League leaders FC Zurich as the only sides not to have tasted defeat at home in Switzerland’s top two divisions.

Winterthur have hardly put a foot wrong since the winter break and scored four goals for a second consecutive game last time out, coming from behind to win 4-2 away to FC Thun. The three points keeps them within touching distance of Aarau at the top, three points clear of third-placed Vaduz and brings their unbeaten run to four games before their trip up to Schaffhuasen.

To illustrate just how important their home form has been this season, Schaffhausen have won only three of their last seven matches in the league, all of them at the WeFox Arena. This next match may yet be their toughest challenge yet against a resurgent Winterthur side that look like a different animal from the one they surprisingly beat 5-2 at the Schutzenwiese in November.

This should be a close contest, Schaffhausen have not failed to score at home in almost a year and don’t concede all that often, but with the attacking prowess of Winterthur and their much-improved form since the turn of the year, I expect both to score in a repeat of their 1-1 draw at the venue in August.

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FC Lugano v Servette (Super League)

Two sides that have been very much out-of-sorts in recent weeks meet in the Swiss Super League this weekend.

Lugano are normally a tough prospect at their home ground, only leaders FC Zurich and champions Young Boys have won there this season, but it was pretty comfortable for St. Gallen last week as they ran out 2-0 victors at the Cornaredo. After an impressive start to the season, which had Lugano in the race to finish second, that result now makes it four defeats in the last five for the club and only two goals scored. 

Servette are still nursing after a bruising 5-1 away defeat to St. Gallen in the previous round and will be looking for a response against Luzern at the Stade de Geneve. They were four minutes away from returning to winning ways on Sunday before Marko Kvasina’s late equaliser snatched a draw for the visitors. SFC are in a similar funk to their opponents on Saturday having won only one of their last four.

Despite their heavy defeat at St. Gallen, SFC do have a slightly better record on the road than at home, scoring in all but one (away to FC Zurich) of their eleven away games. Lugano are strong at home, failing to score in only three of their eleven games at the Cornaredo but also failing to keep a clean sheet in eight of those eleven. 

Both sides will be desperate to return to winning ways and possess the quality to be performing much better than they have been recently. With that in mind, I’m backing both teams to find the net in a tight game.

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