MidWeek 7.5 (24/09/08)

Sevilla v Espanyol (La Liga: Wednesday 10pmCET)

I notice that Sevilla have now been pushed out from 3rd favourites and now have Atletico Madrid, Villareal and in some places Valencia above them and rightly so in my opinion. Alves, Keita and Poulsen were enormous performers for them last season and it’s a hard void to fill. I wasn’t too impressed with the managers decision in some games last season and from what I saw in the game against Gijón I might well be right. They won 4-3 but Sporting were comical at the back and managed to lead 2-0 and 3-2. I am not sure about the Santander game where Sevilla drew 1-1 on the opening day but they were very lucky to survive the derby against Betis without conceding. Espanyol lost Reira in the summer to Liverpool but retained both Tamudo and Garcia who are capable of scoring at any time. Last season they met one day later on 25th September and Espanyol won 3-2. The big question is what to bet here as I think Espanyol at 6.5 on Skybet is cracking value but then so is 4.5 on draw no bet (Paddy Power) as well as 2.3 on the double chance (Paddy Power). I am going to combine two bets here.

++ Win Market – Espanyol @ 6 on Bet365/Paddy Power (Skybet 6.5) (½pt)
++ Double Chance – Espanyol @ 2.3 on Pa
ddy Power (½pt)

Real Madrid v Sporting Gijón (La Liga: Wednesday 10pmCET)

Sporting Gijón have been given a ridiculous schedule to begin with and have played Sevilla and Barcelona this month and still have to play Real Madrid and Villareal, both of which games I would expect them to lose. By how much is the question! I noticed that for the Real Madrid game the AH line is set at Real – 2 which I think has some value. Real only won by more than 2 goals in 4/19 home matches last season but looking at the teams they lost to or beat by just one goal you see Valencia, Espanyol, Getafe, Villareal, Mallorca, Atletico Madrid andMurcia. Of all that lot Getafe andMurcia are the poorest teams and the Getafe game is a derby. So my point is that I find it hard to believe they will win by less than one goal. As I said above Sporting were comical against Sevilla and have leaked 12 goals in their first 3 games including 6 against Barça. With the bookies offering less than 1.5 on over 2.5 goals you have to expect Madrid to get quite a few and I think the -2 handicapwill be beaten and really cannot see them not winning by at least 2 goals so this can’t be a loser.

++ Asian Handicap – Real Madrid @ 1.9 on Bet365 (Canbet 1.89/VC Bet 1.88) (1pt)

The other game I like the look of is Atletico to win at Getafe, which is sort of a derby. Luis Garcia is looking great for Atletico and having improved their defence and added Sinima-Pongolle as another striker they really can do well this season. The price is nice but the stats don’t back me up enough from last season so I will not put it on record.

2 points staked

Good luck in whatever bets you do.

23 Sep, 08 | Comments Closed