Injury-hit Armenia will attempt to remain in contention for a place at the tournament finals when they host Serbia, having lost the opening match to Denmark despite taking the lead. This will be the first competitive fixture for their opponents after they played out a 1-1 draw with France in an international friendly.

Huge missings for Armenia

Armenia have been on a major uptrend over the last few years and they even came close to securing play-off berths in the last two qualifying campaigns. With some of their players plying their trade in Russian Premier League clubs, their recent results have not been that surprising, although this year hasn’t started well for Havakakan. Armenia suffered heavy defeats to Algeria, Germany and Latvia in final warm-up games, conceding 11 goals in the process, before they were beaten by Denmark in the first Euro 2016 qualifier. Bernard Challandes’ side were somewhat fortunate to take the lead in Copenhagen, but they could not hold on to the one-goal advantage after the hosts created plenty of chances to score. Armenia will be hoping to show some improvement in the second group game against Serbia, but that appears to be mission impossible given the circumstances. Namely, main creative outlets Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Aras Ozbiliz as well as top scorer Yura Movsisyan are unavailable at the moment, and no doubts they will be sorely missed. Therefore, the hosts cannot be trusted to end a four-match losing run.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Aras Ozbiliz and Yura Movsisyan are all out injured, which has got to be considered a major blow for Bernard Challandes.

Dick Advocaat takes over the reigns

Serbia missed out on the 2014 World Cup finals in spite of some impressive performances in the second part of the qualifying campaign, but the team now appear well equipped for an assault on the Euro 2016 qualifying berth. With players like Branislav Ivanovic, Aleksandar Kolarov, Nemanja Matic, Dusan Tadic and Filip Djordjevic in the ranks, the Eagles have plenty of individual quality in the ranks, while it is up to new boss Dick Advocaat to find the right balance in the side. His decision not to make wholesale changes to the squad that looked pretty impressive last year should help the team hit the ground running early on, and the promising performance against France in his first match in charge is enough to suggest good times are ahead for Serbia. Having failed to make it to last two major tournaments, everybody in the national team, including the players, are determined to make things right this time out, and they won’t be lacking motivation when they face severely-weakened Georgia on Saturday. The Eagles have some minor injury problems, but that is nothing compared to their next opposition.

Dusan Basta and Antonio Rukavina have been ruled out through injury, with Torino’s Nikola Maksimovic called as a repalcement.

Verdict

Armenia are going through a very rough patch at the moment and with all three star players missing, they cannot be trusted to match very good Serbia side. The Eagles proved their worth by holding France to a 1-1 draw and they should be backed to win this game.

Top pick: Away win   1.80 (4/5) @ BetVictor

Alternative pick 1: Under 2.5 goals   1.71 (7/10) @ 888sport

Alternative pick 2: Serbia to win to nil   2.75 (7/4) @ SkyBet