Frank Lampard is supposed to be in a ‘goal drought’ for his club Chelsea, not scoring since August, but looking at his England form he’s been scoring goals.  So back him on Betfaiir to score at odds of 4.5 (7/2). 

The Premiership takes a break this weekend and it’s back to the International World Cup fixtures.  With two wins out of two for England, everything looks rosy for them…..until the next bad performance and the fans boo them again.

England v Kazakhstan

A nation expects an easy England win here, but the nation should know by now that it’s never easy when England play the ‘smaller’ teams!!!  There’s no doubt that the confidence will be back in the England team after the win against Croatia, but there seems to be very little point in backing them to win as they are priced at a measly 1.07 on Betfair to beat Kazakhstan. 

Betting tip (loser): The England strikers are expected by the bookies to score goals at Wembley and that’s reflected in the way they’ve been priced.  It might be best to go with either Lampard or Gerrard to get a goal from midfield.  I’ll be backing Gerrard at odds of 2.46 on Betfair to score at anytime.

Scotland v Norway

After Scotland lost to Macedonia in their opening game, they managed to the 3 points against Iceland and they’ll be looking to follow up that victory with a win against Norway.  Norway on the other hand have only played 1 game and only have 1 point.  With Holland in their group it may be a case of which team can finish second after the Dutch.

Betting tip (loser): John Carew has be on great form for Aston Villa and hopefully he will be able to continue this for his country.  Let’s back him at 3.46 to score at anytime, price can be found on Betfair.

UPDATE- Although there were alot of goals in the England match, unfortunately none were scored by Gerrard, making the first losing bet of the weekend.  Well I should get some credit for this game, I did predict that there would be boos at Wembley, I’m sure Lampard will be relievedgutted that his Chelsea teammate Ashley Cole was booed! The Scotland match produced no goals, meaning we lost our second bet of the weekend, hopefully we’ll have better luck with the next round of games.

Belgium v Armenia
Bulgaria v Italy
Denmark v Malta
England v Kazakhstan
Estonia v Spain
Faroe Islands v Austria
Finland v Azerbaijan
Georgia v Cyprus
Germany v Russia
Greece v Moldova
Holland v Iceland
Hungary v Albania
Luxembourg v Israel
Poland v Czech Republic
Romania v France
San Marino v Slovakia
Scotland v Norway
Serbia v Lithuania
Slovenia v Northern Ireland
Sweden v Portugal
Switzerland v Latvia
Turkey v Bosnia-Herzegovina
Ukraine v Croatia
Wales v Liechtenstein

Liverpool v Man Utd- This Saturday lunchtime it’s the big match, Liverpool come up against the team they haven’t beaten in 6 consecutive matches at Anfield.  The last time Liverpool picked up a point against United was in 2005, the score was 0-0.  The odds point in favour of Man Utd, bookmakers Paddy Power have them to win at 2.4 and for the home team to win the game at odds of 3.0. 

Betting tip- This fixture has produced under 2.5 goals in the last 5 seasons and the odds of it occurring again from Betfair is 1.58.  Knowing my luck it will be 3 goals in the first 15 minutes, but I’ll be following the stats and backing unders as these games seem to always pretty tight.  This match usually has some tasty challenges, so there should be some yellow cards shown,  If you can find a bookings market on an of the betting sites then I would back small, Mascherano, Scholes and Carragher all to be booked.

UPDATE: -  An early goal from United set this game up to have a potential of alot of goals.  Unfortunately for me then I backed under 2.5 goals.  Liverpool played the better football overall and deserved the three points, but without the mistakes made from United it didn’t look like they were going to score without Torres playing.  Hopefully there will be a change of betting luck soon!!

Blackburn 0-4 Arsenal
Fulham 2-1 Bolton
Liverpool 2-1 Man Utd
Man City 1-3 Chelsea
Newcastle 1-2 Hull
Portsmouth 2-1 Middlesbrough
West Brom 3-2 West Ham
Wigan 1-1 Sunderland
Stoke 2-3 Everton
Tottenham v Aston Villa

Betting tip-  I will be tipping a double for these second round of World Cup qualifying matches.   Lets go for a Russia and Germany double.  Russia are always going to be test at home and with the players like midfielder Arshavin, they will this cause this young Welsh team alot of problems. Wales’ problem on Saturday looked  like they couldn’t take their chances, so one goal could be all that they can manage for this game.  Germany always seem to do enough to get the result they need and I can see them getting three points even with midfielder Ballack missing tonight.  With Germany already coming out as 6-0 winners in their first qualifying game, you can see why they are favourites away from home to win this game at odds of 1.63 on Betfair (backed as a single). 

So back Russia and Germany to win (lay Finland if you are worried about the past draws between the two teams)in a double and singles on Betfair, you can get odds of around 1.91 to just about double you money. 

For any England fans out there, if you are looking to back something in the Croatia match, then I think this match could go to a draw, Croatia are unbeaten in 32 competitive matches at home so 1 point could be the best Capello and his team can get.

UPDATE: In the end it was a case of the reliable Germans letting us down, hopefully you backed a Russia win and layed Finland, but if you are like me and backed the Germans to win, then you will be disappointed that the double didn’t some off.  At least we got one winning bet by backing Russia to win, this should go some way to covering out losses.  I had a feeling Rooney would score against Croatia, but with my past losing ‘to score’ bets, I was put off!! 

Albania 3-0 Malta
Andorra 1-3 Belarus
Azerbaijan 0-0 Liechtenstein
Bosnia-Herzegovina 7-0 Estonia
Croatia 1-4 England
FYR Macedonia 1-2 Netherlands
Faroe Islands 0-1 Romania
Finland 3-3 Germany
France 2-1 Serbia
Iceland 1-2 Scotland
Italy 2-0 Georgia
Kazakhstan 1-3 Ukraine
Latvia 0-2 Greece
Lithuania 2-0 Austria
Moldova 1-2 Israel
Montenegro 0-0 Rep of Ireland
Northern Ireland 0-0 Czech Republic
Portugal 2-3 Denmark
Russia 2-1 Wales
San Marino 0-2 Poland
Slovenia 2-1 Slovakia
Spain 4-0 Armenia
Sweden 2-1 Hungary
Switzerland 1-2 Luxembourg
Turkey 1-1 Belgium

On to the World Cup qualifying fixtures this weekend and after the poor game against the Czechs, England fans can breath a loud sigh of relief and rejoice, that’s right…….Sentanta will be screening the match against Andorra and you won’t be able to watch it on any of the terrestrial channels!!  Thank goodness for that, with Sentanta showing all the away fixtures, England supporters will only have to endure half the stress of watching England.

Betting tips:

Andorra v England- Everyone is thinking that this game will be an easy three points for England, but it’s England!!!  England need a good start and captain John Terry will be a big threat to Andorra on set pieces, back him to score at any time, odds of 5.5 on Betfair.

Slovakia v Northern Ireland- Northern Ireland have come on leaps and bounds over the last few years, beating Euro champions Spain as well as Sweden and Denmark.  But losing games against ‘lesser’  like Latvia away from home meant they failed to qualify for Euro 2008.  Slovakia look to have a pretty solid team and with N. Ireland performing better at home, I will tip Slovakia to win this match at odds of 1.87 on Betfair.  Slovakia score 33 goals in Euro 2008 qualifying, so overs is a good bet as well.

UPDATE- Well the John Terry bet wasn’t a winner, it was his Chelsea team mate Joe Cole who got the goals instead, hopefully anyone who followed only went in small.  But we did have two winning bets this weekend with Slovakia beating N. Ireland and the same match having over 2.5 goals (odds of over 2.0). Hopefully this will be a start towards us getting some winning bets in and making up for losing bets.

Albania 0-0 Sweden
Andorra 0-2 England
Armenia 0-2 Turkey
Austria 3-1 France
Belgium 3-2 Estonia
Croatia 3-0 Kazakhstan
Cyprus 1-2 Italy
FYR Macedonia 1-0 Scotland
Georgia 1-2 Rep of Ireland
Hungary 0-0 Denmark
Israel 2-2 Switzerland
Liechtenstein 0-6 Germany
Luxembourg 0-3 Greece
Malta 0-4 Portugal
Moldova 1-2 Latvia
Montenegro 2-2 Bulgaria
Norway 2-2 Iceland
Poland 1-1 Slovenia
Romania 0-3 Lithuania
Serbia 2-0 Faroe Islands
Slovakia 2-1 Northern Ireland
Spain 1-0 Bosnia-Herzegovina
Ukraine 1-0 Belarus
Wales 1-0 Azerbaijan

Betting tip-  John Terry will want to make a big impression in his first (well sort of) game as captain, hopefully it will be at the right end of the pitch for England, so back him in a fun bet to score at anytime on Betfair at odds of 11.0 against his Chelsea teamate Cech.  You may also want to back Lampard as well at odds of 4.8.

Update- Backing Terry to score didn’t come off, but another defender Wes Brown was the man to score.  A losing fun bet, but hopefully it added some interest to a bland England game.