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!!

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.

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.

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