With Fabregas leaving Arsenal following Ronaldo to Spain, what players can we count on to provide that bit of magic and excitement? Gone are the players of the past such as Ginola, Kinkladze, Zola and Le Tissier. Those were the players who would get the crowd on their feet and the kids trying to copy their tricks in the playground on a Monday morning.

Has the Premiership become more mundane with managers not allowing their players to express themselves? Have all the ‘world class’ players left to play abroad? Has the Premiership become less interesting?……only time will tell, but one thing fo sure to keep us interested is a football bet!!

Manchester City 4 – 3 Wolverhampton Wanderers

I did say it was probably too much to ask from Wolves and it was “just.” Coming back from 4-1 down showed a lot guts and determination. I would go as far to say that Wolves deserved the points, but Lady Luck was not playing the game. Mick McCarthy’s team don’t deserve to be sitting in the relegation zone. Whatever you are doing Mick should be working. The question, of course, is why is it not?

Wolves (12/5) meet Liverpool (7/5) on their home turf on Saturday. This should be a difficult one to call given the poor form by Liverpool recently. The odds on the draw are 12/5 so very iffy.

Tottenham 0 – 0 Manchester United

What is it that Manchester United have got that is eluding Wolves and perhaps at least half of the rest of the teams in the Premier League? Their unbeaten reign continues and Harry Rednapp has said that this is not a great United team. Well they have played 21 games in the Premier League this season without defeat. Is it simply that they have an unshakeable belief in themselves? United were severely tested in this match and you might say that Tottenham should have taken the points. However it seems that United are not prepared to take a back seat to anyone.

United (2/1) meet Birmingham City (17/1) at home on Saturday. The draw at 6/1 is worth a punt.

Birmingham City 1 – 1 Aston Villa

Birmingham continued to slide downwards and Aston Villa continue to hover just above the relegation zone with this one all draw. Alex McLeish pointed out the obvious when he said we don’t score enough goals. There is no doubt that the lack of an effective striker is a major drawback and Birmingham will rue the day if this causes them to fall out of the Premier League.

This week-end betting tips

Everton v West Ham

Everton meet West Ham on Saturday with the odds clearly favouring Everton at 8/15 and West Ham at 7/1 and the draw at 100/30. West Ham need to get their skates on if they are to crawl out of the relegation zone. There is still time to do this, but don’t wait too long. The draw is worth a bet. 

Arsenal v Wigan

Arsenal are clear favourites at 2/9 for this tie with Wigan who badly need the points coming in at 16/1. However Wigan are a team who can get the odd result and at 6/1 for the draw this could be worth a look

We finish the week-end round up with a look at the top goal scorers to date 

Barclays Premier League Top Scorers

 Happy punting

LIVERPOOL 2 – 0 CHELSEA

A crowd of 44,238 fans watched Liverpool give the Premiership League leaders a 2-0 sting from goals by Fernando Torres in the 11th and 44th minutes. At 3/1 on the betting this was a nice one to get although no one really thought that Liverpool was ready at this stage.

Perhaps the point was made on Wednesday when Liverpool visited Wigan where they were held to a 1-1 draw. However we mustn’t cry over spilt milk. Liverpool are now in 9th position in the league. They should be in more positive frame of mind individually and as a team. It’s nice to see them getting back to where they should be.

FULHAM 1 – 1 ASTON VILLA

This proved to be a tough encounter as expected with Fulham just managing to snatch a share of the points in the 95th minute. The very late equaliser knocked the stuffing out of the Aston Villa players who thought the game was as good as done.

Coming up This Weekend

Aston Villa v Manchester United

Manchester United are the bookies favourites for this match with betting at 4/1 for an Aston Villa win, 4/5 for Manchester United and 11/4 for the draw. However the results of the most recent meetings, below don’t suggest that Man U should be the clear favourites. However the league positions at 2nd for Man U on 24 points and 10th for Aston Villa with 16 points is a more convincing argument.

Most recent meetings

28/02/2010 Aston Villa 1-2 Man Utd
10/02/2010 Aston Villa 1-1 Man Utd
12/12/2009 Man Utd 0-1 Aston Villa

Everton  v Arsenal

Everton are sitting 12th in the league with 15 points and Arsenal are 3rd with 23 points.

We did see a blip in Everton’s performance when Arsenal trounced them 1 – 6 at home for Everton. Arsenal are given the edge by the bookies at 5/4 with Everton sitting at 12/5 and 5/2 for the draw.

Most recent meetings

09/01/2010 Arsenal 2-2 Everton
15/08/2009 Everton 1-6 Arsenal
28/01/2009 Everton 1-1 Arsenal

As usual I like to keep you up to date with the leading goal scorers.

Have a nice week end.

However Chelsea playing against Marseilles on the same night played good game and almost bad game to over-come the French champions 2 goals to nil.

Chelsea meet Arsenal at Stamford Bridge on Sunday 3 October at 4pm. The match is screened live on Sky Sports 2 and the early betting suggests that Chelsea are the on-form team. On-form may not be
a totally accurate description at the moment.

However there is not a lot separating the two teams in the Premiership. Chelsea are top on 15 points with Arsenal 3rd on 11 points after playing their first 6 games of the season.

This will be the fixture of the weekend and is certainly worth a flutter at your local bookie.

Chelsea have been the victors in the last three meetings between the two teams and the odds seem to be in their favour.

The odds are in favour of Chelsea at 4/5 and Arsenal at 4/1 to win and 3/1 for a draw. However this is not a forgone conclusion by any means. A bet on a draw is very tantalising and probably realistic.
Arsenal on their game could upset the applecart.

However if you are not persuaded by this, there are many other ways that you can lay a bet on the game.

Who do you fancy to score the first goal? Will it be Walcott, Nasri or Arshavin for Arsenal? Will it be Malouda, Drogba or Kalou for Chelsea?

When all is said and done Abramovich has told his team he expects them to win every competition they play in this year. Indeed the betting is again in favour of them taking the 2010/11 title.

It’s been a season of so many twists and turns, where each title rival have done their best to hand the title to each other, it seems like no one wants to win it this season.  The title is still in Chelsea’s hands, but PremiershipBettingBanter still believes Manchester United can win it, winning the key games against Arsenal and City have been important and if they win the two games against Spurs & Liverpool, a fourth successive title could be making its way to Old Trafford.

So who’ll win it you ask? Well PremiershipBettingBanter will stick its neck on the line and say, go with Man Utd…Chelsea…or maybe Arsenal!!!

If you fancy a small flutter on the upcoming premiership games, then why not take a look at the offers available from one of the free bets uk based websites on the Internet?

So who is going to win the Premiership then?  United for the fourth time? Liverpool finally? Ancelotti’s Chelsea? Arsenal back to winning ways?  Or will an outsider like Manchester City shake things up?

Well as usual it’s a tough call, but Premiership betting Banter are going to back Chelsea.  Looking on Betfair they are favourites at odds of 2/1 with second favourites Manchester United 12/5.  We’re backing the Blues as they’ve have had the minimum impact to their squad out of all the possible championship contender, vital members like Terry have stuck around (was never in doubt).  Whereas their rivals have become weakened, Ronaldo, Tevez, Alonso, Toure, Adebayor all making their way out of their respective teams. 

Of course everything will be dependent on how quick Chelsea can adapt to Ancelotti’s formations (diamonds anyone?) and whether he can kep the respect of players like Drogba.  Blues fans will be hoping that he doesn’t go the way of Big Phil, but we expect them to put up a serious challenge this year, back them on Betfair now!

No matter who wins, we know this season will have thrills, major talking points and great entertainment, it is the Premiership of course!!

Tottenham v Arsenal-This is the 144th London Derby, will it be another thriller like in October where we saw 8 goals?  Spurs have a poor record against Arsenal in the the league, not beating them in 18 Premiership games.  Both clubs need points for very different reasons, Arsenal are looking for Champions League qualification and Spurs will be looking to secure their Premiership status.

Betting tip-Robbie Keane makes his return to Tottenham against their deadly rivals Arsenal. Surely it must be fate?  Robbie Keane to score at anytime on Betfair is priced at 2.68 (13/8), back him to score on Sunday.

This is the 143rd London derby between the teams, Chelsea haven’t lost in 5 games, whereas Arsenal have lost 4 out of the last 5 games.  Last year this fixture saw Chelsea win 2-1, with a double from Drogba.  Football fans who like to see goals will be relieved to know that in 29 games there’s only been one goalless game.

Premiership betting tip: The odds (1.88) show that Chelsea are the favourites to take the points in this match.  I’m tempted to go for a draw in this London derby,  but I’m also swayed into believing that history may repeat itself and we may see Arsenal topple Chelsea at Stamford Bridge like they did in the season where Liverpool also beat Chelsea.  Let’s go for the bet of laying Chelsea at odds of around 1.88, Arsenal will take confidence from their midweek win and thy will also be welcoming back some key players like striker Adebayor.

It might also be interesting to look at backing for fun former players of both sides, Anelka and Gallas to score at anytime.

UPDATE- Chelsea 1-2 Arsenal. It was a disappointing Sunday afternoon if you are a Blue fan (no not the boy band), Chelsea only had one shot on goal throughout the whole 90 minutes, taking that into account, Arsenal deserved to win this match.  The Gunner’s first goal looked to be slightly offside and we got confirmation that it probably was when Wenger told Sky: ‘I didn’t see it’.  Laying Chelsea to win this match at about 1.88 on Betfair instead of backing the draw was a good decision in the end, bringing us a winning Premiership bet for the last day of November!

There’s a lot of pressure for both teams going into this game, Mark Hughes’ job security looks to be in question, whilst the same can be said about Arsenal’s title ambitions. Luckily for Arsenal they have a captain who is willing to pitch in and not undermine the manager during these testing times……

3 points on Saturday will relieve all of the pressure for both teams, well until next weekend!  Arsenal fans can however take heart in knowing that they have not lost back to back Premiership games since losing to Everton,Liverpool and West Ham 58 games ago.  Last year’s result saw the Gunners beat City 3-1. 

Betting tips-  City have a poor record against Arsenal, in 23 league games, they’ve only managed to beat them once.  So at odds of 2.34 on Betfair, Arsenal look to be a good back to win this weekend.  I would also expect over 2.5 goals in this match, games involving City and the Gunners have produced 48 and 40 goals so far this season.  My main bet will be on ‘Over 2.5 goals’ at odds of 1.75. 

You may also be interested to know that Man City have never scored more that 1 goal in the 22 games they’ve played against Wenger’s men.  So assuming they do score one goal and history repeats itself, a 2-1 and 3-1 scoreline to Arsenal at odds of 10 and 19 on Betfair looks to be a tempting bet, back both scorelines for fun, keeping your stakes small.

UPDATE- Man City 3-0 Arsenal.  This game really didn’t go the way I was expecting!  City played some fantastic football and Robinho’s chip to score the second showed exactly why City splashed all the cash for him.  Arsenal on the other hand looked off form in front of goal and Wenger’s decision to not spend any money during the summer looks to be what’s costing them when they have a lot of key players injured and suspended.  Luckily for us, the main tip to back over 2.5 goals was a winner, although it was surprising to see the Gunner’s not get at least one goal in this game.

Surely this game we will show us how the Arsenal players react when the pressure is on them, will they prosper or will they wilt?

Betting tips- United away from home are favourite to win this match at odds of 2.34 on Betfair.  But Manchester United haven’t won at the Emirates yet and have only have 1 win in 8 games away to Arsenal.  So the best bet would be to back the draw at odds of 3.3 currently on Betfair.  Also go for a small bet on Berbatov to score at anytime at odds of 3.35.

UPDATE- What a great match to watch, chances at both ends and some great football played by both of these title challengers.  I’m sure that if United had scored then they wouldn’t have ended up on the losing team.  The bet to go for the draw wasn’t successful this time, looking back at it, no matter how bad the Gunners’ last results have been, it was a little crazy for them not to be favourites when playing at home.

Arsenal v Man Utd
Hull v Bolton
Liverpool v West Brom
Sunderland v Portsmouth
West Ham United v Everton
Wigan v Stoke
Aston Villa v Middlesbrough
Blackburn v Chelsea
Fulham v Newcastle
Man City v Tottenham