April 2013
30th April, 12pm
We finish April with another winner, and its Robin Van Persie to thank this time. His stunning hat-trick to seal the title for Man Utd was exactly what was needed to bring home our bet last week, a pick of Man Utd and Over 2.5 goals as a double. Congratulations to the champions, there’s an argument that they aren’t the finest of Ferguson’s teams, but there’s no doubting their record this season and they will finish well ahead of the rest.
22nd April, 2pm
Wow. A lot happens in a week of football at this time of the season! We know the cup finalists, the league is pretty much over, the European and relegation places are shaping up, and we’ve had a little controversy too.
We’ll start though with a quick look back at our previous bet, which was a Manchester double last Sunday. As expected, United brushed aside Stoke with a comfortable 2-0 win before the FA Cup semi final saw a closer match finish 2-1 to City. We’d backed the pair at 3.8, so another nice return to stick in the kitty this month.
Tempting as it may be to comment on the big story of yesterday, this tipster isn’t going to bite. Most people have already made their conclusions on Suarez, and we’ll leave it to the FA to do the right thing. We’ll take a different angle on the controversy, which is a look at the Premier League top scorers chart:
Suarez 23 goals. 3.3
Van Persie 21 goals. 1.55
Clearly the layers here don’t expect to see him play for Liverpool again this season. Van Persie now has up to 5 matches to overhaul the total of 23 and win it outright. Good value at 1.55? I wouldn’t back it personally, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him take the crown, maybe starting with a couple tonight.
Talking of which, the bigger story of the weekend should have been Man City’s capitulation in 7 second half minutes against Spurs. Fair play to Spurs, they kept at it and eventually wore City down, but City really should have already been out of sight. The City loss means that a win for United tonight at home to Aston Villa will seal the title on home turf. Will they do it? I’d expect so, so lets have a bet.
Match odds:
Man Utd 1.25
Draw 7.4
Aston Villa 16.5
It doesn’t look like many people are backing Villa to spoil the party!
The odds on the expected United win a bit tight for me, so we need to add another element into our bet. I think that United are going to want to do this in style, and it would be no surprise to see Villa on the end of a hammering tonight. Remember that United actually lost their last home game to City, so a couple of weeks brooding on that result plus the opportunity to take the title at home will not go begging. Ferguson also has them fired up for the chance at a record Premier League points total, which they can now only achieve with 5 wins from 5. Bottom line, no slip up tonight, and a number of goals to do it in style.
The combined market I fancy is the match result / over 2.5 goals market. The current price for Man Utd and Over 2.5 goals is a much more reasonable 1.66, so lets have a stab at that.
Today’s bet:
Monday 22nd April, 8pm. Man Utd to win AND over 2.5 goals. £10 @ 1.66
Enjoy the game.
14th April, 12pm
Today is a big day in football, with a hat-trick of appetising matches being served up this afternoon. A great day to settle down in front of the TV, the schedule is as follows:
12pm Newcastle v Sunderland
2pm Stoke v Man Utd
4pm Man City v Chelsea (FA Cup semi final)
There are implications at the top and bottom of the league in the first two, before the FA Cup semi final later to decide who will face Wigan in the Final next month.
My first thought in looking at these fixtures was a treble, but after a bit more consideration there’s one game here I’m going to leave out, and thats the first one. Newcastle are odds-on (just) but I still can’t back them. Di Canio takes Sunderland on this short trip needing points for survival. They may not be bang on form, but these are the sort of games where they can scrap out a result. Too much of a risk for me, so we’ll leave it.
So we’re betting on the second two games, and for the second time recently we’re backing a Manchester double. Lets have a look at the prices:
Stoke 6.4
Draw 4.0
Man Utd 1.67
and
Man City 2.28
Draw 3.55
Chelsea 3.55
So the price on the double is 3.80, cracking value for me, lets have a quick look at each game.
Stoke v Man Utd. After Uniteds blip last week at home to City, this game has taken on a higher degree of importance. They are still as good as nailed on for the league, but anything other than a win here would be giving City that ray of hope that could prove important. Typically after a loss Ferguson will have United unbelievably fired up, and I don’t see them making any more mistakes this time round. Add to this the current form of Stoke (last 6 = lost 5, drawn 1) and I think we have a value bet. To be perfectly honest, I’d have backed United at 1.5 here, so 1.67 is a bonus.
Onto the FA Cup semi final then. Man City showed last week what they can do when they really play. They controlled the game for long spells against United and when Aguero came off the bench they looked the more likely to win the game, which they duly did. Mancini must be regretting the distance behind United in the league after a performance like that, but the league has been lost elsewhere while United have been grinding out results. So that leaves the FA Cup as their only chance of a trophy this season, and they are rightly installed as favourites against an inconsistent Chelsea side. Chelsea are on a run of big games and have played a lot of football lately, they have played some good football, particularly going forward, but they are also looking a bit tired at times. For me Man City will have the power to see them off, and as I side bet today, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Yaya Toure plays a big part. The big man for the big occasion, on his day he is unplayable and he’s got plenty of history for turning it on at Wembley. It will be no surprise if he registers today, so we’ll have a couple of quid on that as well.
Todays bets:
Double. Man Utd and Man City to win. £10 @ 3.80
Side bet. Yaya Toure to score any time. £2 @ 5.1
Enjoy the games!
10th April, 12pm
We had a couple of picks for the Grand National, but unfortunately fell just short. Our first pick was Imperial Commander, which was amongst the runners for the first half of the race before pulling up. The second pick Soll gave us a real run for our money though, running in the top 3 for most of the race before fading towards the end. We’d placed the bets knowing that a finish in 6th was good enough for a place, but sadly Soll faded to finish 7th. A close run thing, in a hugely difficult race to pick a winner. Congratulations to Auroras Encore and jockey Ryan Mania, who sealed a huge pay day on the 66-1 outsider! We’ll have another stab at the race next year.
6th April, 12pm
Slightly later than planned, our man has a couple of cracking bets for the National today. Lets cut straight to the chase:
Imperial Commander. £2 EW @ 16-1.
Soll. £2 EW @ 40-1.
Enjoy the race!
3rd April, 3pm
We signed off another winning month in March with a disappointing result in the football. We’d backed England at what seemed like a great price, even when initially it was trading at around 1.86 on the exchanges. In the time leading up to kick off the price drifted and drifted, and England started the game at the astounding price of 2.12. This was too good to miss, and things were going well when just 5 minutes in Rooney headed home from a corner.
The first half saw plenty of England pressure and they really should have been out of sight by half time. Sadly not, and the second half belonged to Montenegro, who had made a tactical change at the break. England failed to respond, and the home side pressure told with 15 minutes left when they forced a corner home. Either team could have won it, and in the end we had to settle for a draw. Close run thing, and another good example of a game that could have easily been traded. Anyone who backed England pre kick off and traded out during the first half would have had a decent win without the risk of the comeback. Our recommendation was the win though, so unfortunately it has to go down as a loser.
This weekend we are changing our focus to horse racing, with the little matter of the Grand National from Aintree this Saturday. By far the biggest race of the year, public interest in the sport sees a massive spike and the country is at a standstill for 10 minutes while the riders slog out the course. It is notoriously difficult race to pick a winner, a huge field and difficult course see to that. However, we’re going to have a stab at a couple of decent priced picks, backing them each way rather than outright. A quick note at this point, our selections for this race should be placed with BetVictor who offer an industry-leading 6 place payout on the Grand National. If you want to take advantage of this and their current sign up offer, click here or click the banner below.
So which horses are we looking at for the big race? As with the Cheltenham Festival we are going to our man in the know, he’s currently pouring over the form and we’ll have his thoughts soon. Check back tomorrow when his tips will be live…