Wales vs Northern Ireland: Arsenal midfielder and Liverpool star to feature in predicted XI, Live Stream

Wales vs Northern Ireland: Arsenal midfielder and Liverpool star to feature in predicted XI, Live Stream - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Euro 2016 Championships
Date: Saturday 25th June 2016
Time: 17:00 BST
Venue: Parc des Princes, Paris
Live Stream: Watch Euro 2016 Live Online

Wales and Northern Ireland meet in an all-British affair in the second round with one of these debuting nations guaranteed to reach the second round. Northern Ireland will be playing their second game at the Parc des Princes, home of Paris Saint-Germain and their kick-off time will have been the same for all four games (only France and Hungary also had the same kick-off times for their three group stage matches).

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In all, four of the five nations appearing in the European Championships for the first team this summer reached the second round, but with Slovakia facing Germany and Iceland taking on England, the winner of this match is widely-expected to be the last one standing.

Wales topped a group that consisted of England, Slovakia and Russia with England being particularly disappointing and Russia being one of the worst teams in the tournament (only Ukraine picked up fewer points).

Gareth Bale is the only player to have scored in all three group games for his country, though he was given a helping hand by both the Slovakian and English goalkeepers who woefully dealt with his direct free kicks.

It will be interesting to see how Chris Coleman’s side play this one as both nations sat back looking to play counter-attacking football in their group games. Wales are considered to be the better of the two sides on paper – so will the manager set his team up to take the game to their opponents?

Aaron Ramsey has been one of their key players and is a potential match winner in this game for Wales. The Arsenal midfielder has enjoyed a lot of the ball in comparison to his teammates and has been involved in half of their goals so far (1 goal, 2 assists). Only Hungary could match Wales’ six goals in the group stage.

Northern Ireland’s 2-0 win over Ukraine was enough to reach the second round as one of the better third-placed teams in between 1-0 defeats to Poland and Germany. The latter could have been much greater but for a mixture of poor finishing from the world champions and excellent goalkeeping from Michael McGovern.

They are certainly expected to play this game defensively and try hurt Wales on the counter-attack and from set pieces. They don’t have a great deal going for them in open play but they did cause Germany the occasional problem on the break last time out.

Steven Davis, Conor Washington and Niall McGinn look like they’re biggest threats playing that way whilst Gareth McAuley headed home a free kick versus Ukraine and also scored three times in qualifying.

No team has had few attempts on goal than Northern Ireland at Euro 2016, whilst both Poland and Germany created enough opportunities to give them a hiding. It’s fair to say that Michael O’Neill’s side have a better defensive record than they deserve at this stage.

The winner of this match faces either Belgium or Hungary in the quarter-finals.

Predicted Wales Lineup: Wayne Hennessey; James Chester, Ashley Williams, Ben Davies; Chris Gunter, Joe Allen, Aaron Ramsey, Joe Ledley, Neil Taylor; Gareth Bale; Sam Vokes

Predicted Northern Ireland Lineup: Michael McGovern; Aaron Hughes, Gareth McAuley, Craig Cathcart, Jonny Evans; Jamie Ward, Corry Evans, Oliver Norwood, Steven Davis, Stuart Dallas; Conor Washington

Betting Odds with Ladbrokes

Gareth Bale is 7/1 to score from a direct free-kick.

Northern Ireland 17/4 to win against Wales.

Ladbrokes offering 6/4 for both teams to score.