A couple of big games in England this weekend and with Man United’s poor away form, an unpredictable Manchester City team with undoubted class in it and a derby atmosphere 4.5 looks big for City. Arsenal have been poor but imagine they will raise their game on Sunday but Anelka will surely score at some stage.

In Spain we start the decent with the top teams coming up against each other and Saturday night should be a cracker with Barcelona visiting Sevilla. I may well tip Barça a lot over the coming weeks as I fancy them to show their class.

On to the matches and a corner bet to begin

Chelsea v Arsenal (English Premiership: Sun 4pm Local Time)

It’s a Big 4 game and historically that means low corners. I use results going back 4 seasons and include this as well and we have 54 matches and 38 have been 10 corners or less. That’s 70% and should be odds of 1.42. Looking at just Chelsea home games 11/15 were 10 or less (73%-1.36). For Arsenal away it’s 9/13 10 or less (69%-1.44) and then the last 4 meetings between these two at StamfordBridge have all been 10 or less, and so were the 4 at Highbury. Most of the markets go under 10 but Bet365 offer the 10.5 line.

++ Asian Total Corners – Under 10.5 @ 1.85 on Bet365 (1pt)

Aston Villa v Fulham (English Premiership: Sat 3pm Local Time)

The stat I like here is the half time result. 6/7 Villa home games have been a HT draw and all 6 of Fulham’s away matches. That’s 12/13 and gives odds of 1.08 but bookies can’t offer that so we have 2.3 available. The question then is can we find any better value. Is it better to back Draw/Villa on the HT/FT at 4.5 and Draw/Draw at 6.5 which averages a better price but Draw/Villa would not return as much as the straight bet. 1-0 Villa looks likely but I am going to stick with the HT Result bet to be safe. 

++ Half Time – Draw @ 2.3 on Bet365 (1pt)

Nottingham Forest v Barnsley (English Championship: Sat 3pm Local Time)

Rumour this week was Calderwood was close to the sack and that can’t be the ideal preparation for any team. Forest are bottom of the league with just 2 wins all season and Barnsley were down there but have pulled themselves out now and in the last 10 matches only Wolves and Brum have taken more points than them. They have just 2 losses in the last 8 matches and have won 5 of those games. Forest have won just once in the last 16 matches and I find it a bit odd they are favourites. My thinking here is Barnsley are good enough to win but they are very unlikely to lose so if we take them on Asian handicap (0)/Draw no bet we should not lose.

++ Asian Handicap – Barnsley (0) @ 2.25 on Bet365 (1pt)

Inter Milan v Napoli (Italy: Sun 3pm local time)

Simple stats bet. 4/6 Inter Milan home games were under 2 goals and 4/7 Napoli away games. Take them together and 8/13 is 62% and should be odds of 1.63. Looks like 1-0 Inter Milan to me but Sporting Bet offer a nice 3.5 on under 1.5 goals, and I know better is available on Betfair.

++ Over/Under 1.5 – Under @ 3.5 on Sporting Bet (1pt)

Sevilla v Barcelona (Spain: Sat 10pm local time)

Some statistical analysis in this but this is also a gut feeling bet. Before Spain heads into these big fixtures I decided I would be happy to back Barcelona at anything above 2.2ish away and anything above 1.91 at home. The first game comes and I just think they’ll have too much for Sevilla. A big blow for Sevilla is that Navas is suspended, although Capel is back to bring his own special way of falling over to the left wing. Barcelona drew with Getafe last weekend which broke their 9 game winning run. Only Sevilla have conceded less goals than them this season but they have scored more than twice as many as Sevilla. Sevilla have managed just one goal in their last 3 home games and were pretty poor against Valencia last week.

++ Win Market – Barcelona @ 2.2 on General (1pt)

Valencia v Real Betis (Spain: Sun 8pm local time)

I was at the Gijón v Betis game last week and Betis were very impressive. Mehmet Aurelio looks to be in control of the midfield but Sergio Garcia and Emana looked really dangerous when they linked up. I just read on ESPN that Betis have now won 7 of their last 8 league and cup games and they looked like a team on form. Valencia started the season strongly but until they played Sevilla last weekend had not played a top side. They only have one win in the last 5 games and that was against Getafe who had a man sent off after Valencia took the lead. The last two games at the Mestalla have seen Santander and Gijón leave with 3 points and this coule happen again. Stan James are well out with the 5.3 on Betis to win but I also think the double chance odds look great.

++ Double Chance – Betis/Draw @ 2.1 on Sporting Bet (1pt) – same as Asian Handicap – Betis (+0.5) @ 2.1 on Stan James

6 points staked on the weekend.

Good luck in whatever bets you do.

Well Darlington lost after leading early 1-0 and that scuppered the double. MK Dons did there part and won 3-0. What is frustrating about the Darlington game is that is had 3 goals and so would have been a winner for the 2-3 goals bet. Apologies for that as I really should have gone down that route. Shrewsbury scored in the 50^th minute and won 2-1 but were drawing at HT so another loser.

57 bets (50½ points staked) :: 20 win – 5 void – 1 half void/loss – 30 losses :: -2.83