Weekend 27th February 2009

Feels good to be back and looking for games. The break was good and allowed me to do some programming to do major checks throughout all leagues for certain stats, patterns etc that I am interested in. I won’t jump straight in with them but hopefully they will form a basis for a profitable future.

The Champions League in midweek put a lot of the other leagues in perspective and it’s amazing how strong the Premier League is. Spain has come out of Europe very badly and it could be Barcelona are their only survivor in all European competition after the return legs, and even they didn’t look that convincing. Elsewhere in Spain Valencia still haven’t been paid, got knocked out of the UEFA cup and are on a poor run and the could implode with all their problems. Barcelona visit Atletico Madrid in an interesting game that they won 4-2 last year. They have their own problems though with Aguerro being labelled as having a bad attitude by the fired former coach and were comprehensively outplayed in midweek.

A corner bet to start.

Arsenal v Fulham (Premiership: Sat 3pm Local Time)

Arsenal host Fulham and I think it could be quite a tight game. At home only Liverpool average more corners than Arsenal as well as being the only team with a higher average supremacy than Arsenal. At the Emirates the average supremacy is 5.5 and if we take out the visits of Liverpool and Man Utd we get an average supremacy of 6.4. The handicap line is 3.5 and of these remaining 11 games Arsenal would have beaten that line in 8 of them and in the 3 they didn't they were damn close as they were 2, 3 and 3 corners to the good. Fulham lost by 6 corners at Anfield and 9 corners at Old Traffford already this season and that's enough for me.

++ Asian Handicap Corners – Arsenal (-3.5) @ 1.9 on Bet365 (1pt)

Leeds v Scunthorpe (English League One: Sat 3pm Local Time)

Many a time this season I thought Leeds have been overestimated pricewise so was a bit shocked to see what looks like value in their price tomorrow. Leeds have won 10/16 at home but interesting 8 of these have been by more than one goal. They come into this game on the back of 4 straight away wins, whereas Scunthorpe have lost 3 games in a row and 4 of the last 6 away games. They have lost away 7 times in 17 matches this season which is decent form but of those 5 have been by more than 1. The bottom line is that the Leeds on a handicap of -1 would have won 13/33 times but then 4 would have been void so it’s actually 13/29 which is odds of 2.23 and as we can get 2.65 and that Leeds are on much better form that Scunthorpe we have some value. An additional interesting stat is that 63% of Leeds home games and 71% of Scunthorpe away games have been 2 or 3 goals and 2-1 Leeds looks a decent bet.

++ Asian Handicap – Leeds (-1) @ 2.65 on Bet365 (1pt)

Palermo v Catania (Italy: Sun 3pm local time)

Not the first time this season we head down to Sicily. Palermo have won 9/12 at home this season with the losses coming against Fiorentina, Inter and Juventus who make up 3 of the top 4 placings. In those 9 wins they have scored at least 2 goals 8 times and this week host the team with the worst away record in the league. Catania have not won away all season and managed to draw 5/12 but have never scored more than 1 goal and managed just 2 goals in the last 8 away games. The Palermo win is 1.83 and I think this is cracking value but I will try and strangle a little bit more value out of the game. If we take the Palermo home and Catania away games together 7/24 have been H/H as HT/FT (3.42) and 9/24 have been D/H as HT/FT (2.67). As we can get the better price on D/H it makes sense to split the stake and have H/H as a cover

++ HT/FT – Home/Home @ 3 on Skybet/Stan James (½pt)

++ HT/FT – Draw/Home @ 4.5 on Skybet/Bet365/VC/Coral/Ladbrokes (1pt)

Maritimo v Setubal (Portugal: Sat 6:30pm local time)

I don’t really look at Portuguese games much but this stood out as William Hill offer some value on the clean sheet. Martimo have kept a clean sheet in 5/10 home games and Setubal have scored in just 2/9 games so taking both those the chance of a clean sheet is 12/19 (63%) which is odds of 1.58. Nacional have let in 11 goals in 10 homes games but 6 were against Benfica so it’s just 4 in the other 10 games and I think this is enough with odds of 1.83 available.

++ Home Team Clean Sheet – Maritimo @ 1.83 on William Hill (1pt)

4½ points staked on the weekend.

Good luck in whatever bets you do.

27 Feb, 09 | Comments Closed