Thursday's Europa League and Europa Conference League qualifying predictions and free football tips

Best bets

Over 2.5 goals in Aberdeen v Hacken
BBC Scotland, 7.45pm Thursday
3pts 8-11 Hills

Union Saint-Gilloise to beat Lugano
7.30pm Thursday
1pt 8-5 Hills

Thursday's Europa League and Conference League qualifying predictions

Villa Park is likely to be the final stop on Hibernian's European tour this season after Aston Villa's ruthless 5-0 demolition of the Edinburgh side in the first leg of their Europa Conference League playoff.

Ollie Watkins scored a hat-trick for Villa, who are 4-1 with Betfair and Paddy Power to score over 4.5 goals in the home leg, although manager Unai Emery will surely rest most of his first-team regulars given the significance of Sunday's Premier League trip to Liverpool.

Two other Scottish clubs have a better chance of progressing in Europe. Hearts are bidding to overturn a 2-1 deficit in their Conference League second leg away to PAOK Salonika and Aberdeen's Europa League playoff tie with Hacken is level at 2-2.

The Dons fought back from 2-0 down in the first leg in Gothenburg thanks to goals from Bojan Miovski and Nicky Devlin in the final 15 minutes and a late Miovski penalty earned them another 2-2 draw at St Mirren on Sunday.

There were 35 attempts at goal in the first leg, with Hacken edging that heat 18-17. Over 2.5 goals may well land for the fifth Aberdeen game in a row as the visitors are comfortably the highest-scoring team in this season's Allsvenskan with 52 goals in 21 matches.

Union Saint-Gilloise reached the Europa League quarter-finals last season and the Belgians have one foot in the group stage after a 2-0 home win over Lugano. 

They sold star striker Victor Boniface to Bayer Leverkusen in the summer but have won three of their first four league matches and look a big price to wrap up the tie in style in Switzerland.

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