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 FC

King Kenny reigns, long live the king. There was not a lot happening on the pitch as far as the Premier League was concerned. Plenty of cup action though and no Liverpool did not progress under, new manager, Kenny Dalglish’s management. A penalty conceded in the 2^nd minute was enough for Manchester United to take this match. A lot is being asked of Dalglish to take a shaky team out of the doldrums. I fear that the Liverpool fans will have to be happy with simply managing to stay in the Premier League this season.

Newcastle United

Newcastle are also not living the dream and they will take no further part in the FA Cup. They were summarily despatched by Stevenage by 3 goals to 1. This was the classic ideal of convincing your team that it your 11 versus another 11. There was no respect for the might of Newcastle, nor their talent. However the talent was in short supply for this game. I have seen this time and again when the big clubs show no respect for the minnows or in this case Stevenage who are sitting 15^th in League Two. Let’s take bets on how far Stevenage will go in this tournament this year.

Derby County

I felt that I had to mention this other pathetic performance by Derby County. Sitting 13^th in the middle of the NPower Championship, Derby should have made short work of non-league Crawley Town. However, again they pay the price for showing no respect to the non-league team. Maybe if the players of Derby County spent less time playing bingo online and more time practicing they could improve their performance! Crawley sitting second in the Blue Square Bet Premier League are in a strong position to secure promotion into the football league next season.

This weekend

Chelsea v Blackburn

Blackburn visit Chelsea on Saturday. At 13/1 Blackburn are not the fancied team. However Chelsea have not been entirely consistent of late. However there is a matter of 7 goals against Ipswich Town in last week-end’s cup game. Chelsea are 30/100 to win and no doubt bolstered by their annihilation of Ipswich. At 9/2 for a draw I would not be surprised if Blackburn pulled this off.

Manchester City v Wolverhampton Wanderers

This is probably too much to ask from Wolves. Come on Mick think of Stevenage. Manchester City are 1/3 while Wolves are placed at 11/1 and the draw sitting at 9/2. My theme for the week-end is that it is simply 11 men versus another 11 men. Don’t measure your standards by what you perceive theirs to be. Enough of the psychology go for the draw at best.

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

 Happy punting.

Premiership Betting tip- In derby games you are never sure what’s going to happen as form goes out the window, although saying that both team’s form has been pretty good (United 1 defeat,City undefeated in the Premiership).  One thing that we can almost guarantee is that there will be passion and passion usually means fouls and yellow cards! Lets look at players who are likely to play and pick up yellows, Scholes is suspended for this game so lets back Fletcher & Evra for United and Nigel de Jong for City, back them all on Betfair (prices no available at present).  Lets all hope for some tasty challenges!

Betting tip- I’m going to tip and back ‘Over 2.5 goals‘ in this match, you can get odds of around 2.06 on Betfair.

[metacafe]http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2106449/cristiano_ronaldo_vs_manchester_city/[/metacafe] 

 This was Ronaldo’s explanation (excuse) for this bizarre incident:

Rooney took the corner, I jumped and that was when I heard a shout from Richards and simultaneously the sound of a whistle. I was convinced that the ref had blown for a foul. I stopped trying to head the ball and score a goal. I grabbed the ball so Richards could get help

PremiershipBettingBanter.com thought that this was a pretty good excuse, but we’ve come up with a couple more excuses he could use:

1. When he jumped to head the ball, the wind blew his hair out of place and he tried to re-style it.
2. A fan in the crowd started chanting: hands up if you love Ronaldo.
3. Ronaldo was practising for the Olympic netball team.
4. Maradonna’s visit to the Manchester United training ground was a bad influence on him.

If you have any other excuses you think Ronaldo could use then feel free to send them in and we’ll add them here.

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.