Another winning weekend but still in the negative. Think we are moving in the right direction and can get there soon enough. The corner bet was a winner as West Brom beat Middlesborough 5-3. Morecombe lost 1-0 to the Gills which was the loser before Malagabeat Espanyol emphatically 4-0.

Elsewhere Barcelona smashed Depor 5-0 and it’s cruel to the rest of the league how good they are. They are rightfully installed as favourites for the Champions League and some good teams will get a pasting from them this season.

76 Bets (71.5 points staked) :: 29 won – 40 lost – 6 void – 1 half void :: -2.35 points

Not sure if there are midweek games but will post if anything comes up.

* This does not include the 3 antepost bets.

“If I lose today, I can look forward to winning tomorrow, and if I win today, I can expect to lose tomorrow. A sure thing is no fun.” – Chico Marx

Malaga v Espanyol (Spain: Sun 5pm Local Time)

Espanyol are really struggling this season on and off the field. 7 players are free agents at the end of the season, the goalie had a fight with a fan recently at training and they are having financial difficulties selling property to do with moving to a new stadium. They won their first 2 games of the season an since then have won just once in 16 games, losing 6 of the last 9. Malaga have done really well this season, especially at home. They come into this game with 4 wins in the last 6 and 3 wins on the bounce at home. Only Valencia and Barcelona have won in Malaga and Villarreal and Bilbao are the only teams to have left there with anything. In short they have beaten all the weaker teams and only dropped points against the big boys. The price of 2.1 has gone so I will use the 2.05 Hills offer

++ Win Market – Malaga @ 2.05 on William Hill (1pt)

This was a hard weekend to find matches in. As I said I have cut down where I look for games so hopefully its quality not quantity. Not to many real big games about but a few of interest.

There were 3 corner games that I liked the look of this weekend but I kept coming back to this and hope I was right. The bottom line is that ‘Boro average just 3.5 corners away from home and only Portsmouth average less. They visit the baggies who average 6.7 corners at home which is 7^th overall. WBA have played 9 games against teams outside the big 4 and average over 11 corners in these games. In 7 of the 9 they have had at least 5 corners and 8 or more in 5 of them. Middlesborough have visited Liverpool but in the other 9 games have averaged more than 4 corners just twice. This games looks like it could easily end up 7-4 to WBA and with the handicap at -1 we would take that.

Morecombe v Gillingham (English League Two: Sat 3pm Local Time)

I had this bet pencilled in and then I saw the team news on BBC and became convinced. Morecombe have a couple of players back but ‘Stuart Lewis replaces captain Barry Fuller (pneumonia) and Mark Bentley fills in for suspended Garry Richards in a makeshift Gillingham defence.’ The poor Gills captain has got pneumonia and who knows how that will affect them. Morecombe lost their first 2 home games but since then are 9 unbeaten at their home ground, no idea what it is called. The Gills have won just 2 away and lost 6 of their 11 away games. 4 of the Gills last 6 games have been at home but despite thei they registered just one win. Morecombe have won 3 of the last 4 at home and the other was a draw at Exeter who are having a great season.

++ Win Market – Morecombe @ 2.625 on Paddy Power/Blue Sq (1pt)

There is another game I really like in Spain. I just don’t have time to write it up now so will make the selection and add it tomorrow.

Malaga v Espanyol (Spain: Sun 5pm Local Time)

++ Win Market – Malaga @ 2.1 on Stan James (1pt)

3 points staked on the weekend.

Good luck in whatever bets you do.

Had a look around and really nothing I am prepared to put up. I do like Stockport at Swindon but Swindon haven’t won a lot but they also haven’t lost too many recently and Stockport come in to the game with poorish form over the last few matches. The other game that appeals is Man Utd against Wigan. At the weekend it was all about Man Utd not losing at home and Chelsea not losing away, but neither of them had faced decent teams. Hull and West Ham are the only team in the top half to have visited Old Trafford, aside from Chelsea, and you would have expected them to win most of those games. Wigan have visited the other big 4 already and only lost by 1 goal each time and you get a decent price on them at +1.5 on the Asian Handicap. I don’t think Utd are as good as everyone thinks this season and will be interesting to see how they perform after the high of Sunday

Good luck in whatever bets you do.

A winner at evens and a loser mean there’s no change at all this weekend in our total. Exeter really let us down as they were also the losing leg in an accumulator I had but despite leading 1-0 they went down 2-1. Man United convincingly beat Chelsea who were a disappointment. Between them they shared 9 corners so the big 4 game corner stat held up and we sneaked a winner.

Be an interesting month ahead for Chelsea and they must be regretting ever getting rid of the special one. In Spain Valencia and Villarreal played out a corker on Saturday night but the it’s quite hard to know who is the best of the chasing pack. Messi won Barcelona another game but Madrid looked very solid against Mallorca and the price of 1.8 looks very big now. Sevilla had only 10 men but managed to come back from 1 down in Depor which was a massive result. They have a solid team, don’t concede many and I am a big fan of Jesus Navas on the wing, and I avoided any saviour jokes there. Betis were the hot team a couple of months back but lost again after being down to 9 men and next game will be without Emana who was one of those sent off and he has impressed me all season and would not be surprised to see him move somewhere bigger.

73 Bets (68.5 points staked) :: 27 won – 39 lost – 6 void – 1 half void :: -3.22 points

A few midweek games around so I’ll have a look at that. In terms of the antepost bets Carew’s injury means that is pretty much dead in the water and Adebayor needs a hatrick or two to make a dent in the leaders for us. In France Rennes won again and Lyon drew so just 2 points separate Lyon, Bordeaux and Rennes at the top.

* This does not include the 3 antepost bets.

“If I lose today, I can look forward to winning tomorrow, and if I win today, I can expect to lose tomorrow. A sure thing is no fun.” – Chico Marx