Newcastle United 1 – 1 Chelsea

Andy Carroll scored in the 6^th minute to put Newcastle into the lead in this match which was more notable for the rumours that Roman Abramovich was about to replace Carlo Ancelotti with Pep Guardiola the Barcelona coach. If this didn’t unsettle Ancelotti then Carroll’s goal probably did. Newcastle sitting 9^th in the Premiership saw the score levelled in the 45^th minute from a Malouda pass which set up Kalou for the equaliser. With other events unfolding in the Premiership over the weekend this result saw Chelsea drop from the top spot for the first time this season.

Manchester United 7 – 1 Blackburn

Only Andy Cole, Alan Shearer, and Jermain Defoe have scored five goals in a Premier League match until Dimitar Berbatov seemingly woke up from his ten game hibernation to join them with five goals against Blackburn in the 2, 27, 47, 62 and 70 minutes. Park (23) and Nani (48) picked up the other two goals. Christopher Samba got Blackburn’s consolation goal in the 83^rd minute. Looking a bit like a tight rugby union score Blackburn withered under this blitz with their fans chanting that they wanted a refund of their ticket money. This result put Manchester United 2 points ahead of Chelsea at the top of the Premiership.

Wolverhampton Wanderers 3 – 2 Sunderland

Mick McCarthy saw his team take victory at Molineux which on paper should have been Sunderland’s for the taking Wolves sitting 19^th in the relegation zone. McCarthy’s players are 100% behind him saying that the win was as much for him as anyone else.

Coming Weekend Betting Choices

Birmingham v Tottenham

Spurs have the clear advantage away to Birmingham and there is no doubt that Alec McLeish’s men will have to be playing above themselves for this tie. Birmingham are 11/4 to win with Spurs 6/5 favourites. The draw is forecast at 5/2. My prediction is Birmingham 1 – 2 Spurs.

West Brom v Newcastle

This will be a tough encounter with West Brom sitting at 11/8 to win and Newcastle on 12/5. The draw is the same at 12/5. This is too close to call and I am going for a 1 – 1 draw.

Blackburn v Wolverhampton

Can Wolves repeat their success of last week-end against Sunderland? Will Blackburn have recovered from their hammering at the hands of Manchester United last week-end? One team with their tails up another with their tails between their legs. Blackburn are fancied at 5/6 to win with Wolves coming in at 4/1. A draw will get you 11/4. I’m going to stick my neck out on this one with a result for Wolves – 1-2.

He was a great football coach who with Joe Mercer brought in one of the most successful periods for Manchester City from 1967 to 1970. His football career was spent mainly with West Ham United playing 250 games for the team. “Big Mal” spent his final years in care homes and suffered from dementia.

LIVERPOOL FOOTBALL CLUB

The long drawn out saga at Liverpool FC seems to have run its course although the two amigos are still threatening legal action. Let’s hope that this great club can begin to focus on what they are good at. I.e. play football. I know they didn’t show it at the weekend.

Last Weekend Fixtures

Thinking back to last week’s blog, I believe I can hold my hand up and say “I told you so.”

My chosen games were Manchester United v West Brom, Newcastle v Wigan, And Bolton Wanderers v Stoke

I did say that the Bolton Wanderers v Stoke game was too close to call. In the end it was the home advantage that gave Bolton the edge to take the three points. Meanwhile Manchester United gave away a two goal lead to let hard working West Brom share in the points. My preferred game at Newcastle likewise saw Wigan throw away a two goal lead to let the home side equalise and once again share in the points.

Premiership Betting tips

West Ham v Newcastle

If past form is anything to go by West Ham should be able to capitalise on the home advantage at 6/4 to win while Newcastle are coming in at 11/5 to win. The odds are 12/5 for the draw. Newcastle showed some tenacity in coming back against Wigan last weekend. This is my bet of the weekend

Most recent meetings

10/01/2009 Newcastle 2-2 West Ham
20/09/2008 West Ham 3-1 Newcastle
26/04/2008 West Ham 2-2 Newcastle

Liverpool v Blackburn

Can Liverpool begin to get their act together against Blackburn on Sunday? Think of it lads, a win will lift you out of the relegation zone and could perhaps dump Blackburn into it. The bookies are looking favourably on Liverpool at 4/5 to win against Blackburn’ s 9/2 with a draw being forecast at 11/4. I think Liverpool can pull this off.

Most recent meetings

28/02/2010 Liverpool 2-1 Blackburn
05/12/2009 Blackburn 0-0 Liverpool
11/04/2009 Liverpool 4-0 Blackburn

Leading goal scorers to date are:

6 Berbatov (Manchester United)
6 Drogba (Chelsea)
6 Malouda (Chelsea)
6 Tevez (Manchester City)
5 Bent (Sunderland)
4 Elmander (Bolton Wanderers)
4 Carroll (Newcastle United)
4 Walcott Arsenal)
4 Cahill (Everton)
4 Kalou (Chelsea)

However it seems yet again that no one will touch Chelsea this season with a satisfying 2 – 0 win over Arsenal…

Drogba did the business as usual hitting the back of the net in 39 minutes. Arsenal tried hard to find an equaliser but were not up to the task before Alex put the game beyond Arsenal’s reach with a strike in the 85th minute.

To sum up, this simply meant that there were no upsets for the Bookies.

What is interesting of course is that Liverpool appears to have been to sold New England Sports Ventures a group that owns the Boston Red Sox. However will this change Liverpool’s fortunes as the club drop into the relegation zone for the first time in 46 years?

As ever we have a number of interesting games coming up over the weekend.

My picks are Bolton Wanderers v Stoke City, Manchester United v West Bromwich Albion, and Newcastle v Wigan.

The Manchester game is tantalising in that I am waiting to see if Man Utd will slip up again. However the bookies are not taking the bait. At 10/1 for a WBA away win it could put some cash in your pocket for the night in the pub.

The Bolton Wanderers / Stoke game is too close to call at 11/10 for a home win, 9/4 for a draw and 9/4 for an away win.

On balance I think that I am going to go for the Newcastle / Wigan game. At 4/5 for a home win, 23/10 for a draw and 10/3 for an away win. This is my bet of the week. Don’t mention Chelsea by the way.

Leading goal scorers to date are;

6 Berbatov (Manchester United)

6 Drogba (Chelsea)

6 Malouda (Chelsea)

5 Bent (Sunderland)

4 Elmander (Bolton Wanderers)

4 Tevez (Manchester City)

4 Carroll (Newcastle United)

4 Walcott (Arsenal)

Tottenham v Hull- Can Spurs win their first league game this season? Or will they be beaten by Hull at home like their red rivals last week?  Hull have yet to lose on the road this season and will definitely give Tottenham a hard test.  The last time the two teams played each other in the league, Spurs came out 1-0 winners, but that was in 1978!!

Betting tip (LOSER):Tottenham haven’t looked a threat upfront and it’s very hard to tell where the next goal is coming from, but Hull have yet to keep a clean sheet.  If Spurs can get ahead then they’ll have a chance at picking up the three points.  But I’ll be looking at the ‘Over 2.5 goals’ market and backing ‘Over 2.5 goals’ at odds of 1.81.   It might be interesting to also look into Fraizer Campbell to score against Hull, the team he was on loan to last season(if he starts).

Man City v Liverpool- Richard Dunne is an injury doubt for Manchester City, but Bulgarian Martin Petrov could start.  City have won three out of their six league games this season and Liverpool  can boast an unbeaten record. 

Betting tip (WINNER): City have not scored against Liverpool in the league for over 9 hour of football and the scoreline between the two teams has either been 0-0 or 0-1.  But I’m going to go against the odds here and back ‘Over 2.5 goals’ at odds of 2.28 on Betfair.  Liverpool have some fantastic attacking players and I will hoping(preying) that City can score at least one goal against their mean defence!!  Let’s hope in the selected matches it will be raining goals!!

UPDATE- It was one winning and one losing bet for the weekend, backing over 2.5 goals made an easy winning bet for the City match where the score ended up as 3-2 to Liverpool.  Although it was the Spurs match which let us down this weekend, Tottenham just couldn’t break down a resilient Hull defence. Backing over 2.5 goals in a Tottenham match may not prove to be so profitable this season with them finding it hard to hit the back of the net.

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

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 tips- I still haven’t learnt my lesson with backing players in the ‘To Score’ market, so I will go for another, back Adebayor in the Arsenal v Newcastle match to score at anytime.  He seems to love scoring against Newcastle, having scored in three games against the Geordies last season.  Hopefully Wenger will play him and hopefully this bet will come off!!  Paddy Power has him down as 11/10 (2.10) to score at anytime, click here to go to anytime scorer market.

Sunderland play Man City in a match which pits the two ex-United players Keane and Hughes against each other.  City done the double over Sunderland last season winning both home and away matches.  I think that the City players could be a little weary after Thursday’s extra time and with them having lost their last three away games, i will be backing Sunderland to win at odds of 2.3 on Betfair, or check the Paddy Power banner on the right for the latest match odds.

Some fun bets to have this weekend are for Kevin Davies who’s just penned a new contract with Bolton this week to score at anytime (Betfair quote him at 3.5).  Also back the man at the centre of the this summer’s tapping up affair Gareth Barry to score against Liverpool, Betfair give pretty good odds of 6.2.

UPDATE: I’m feeling as sick as an England player who hasn’t eaten anything for 8 hours whilst having to do intensive training exercises.  Once again a weekend of failed bets, I thought the fun bet backing Kevin Davies to score at anytime would be winner, only for the linesman to rule offside…twice.  Wigan were one of the teams I was looking to bet on, unfortunately I didn’t act on my instinct.

Results:

Arsenal 3-0 Newcastle
Bolton 0-0 West Brom
Everton 0-3 Portsmouth
Hull 0-5 Wigan
Middlesbrough 2-1 Stoke
West Ham 4-1 Blackburn
Aston Villa 0-0 Liverpool
Chelsea 1-1 Tottenham
Sunderland 0-3 Man City