Football Betting Tips - 30.3

Today I'll review two matches where the teams’ top predictors think differently than the rest of the community.
At the Merseyside derby today, not only the pride is at stake, as both teams slipped last week. Everton and West-ham shared the spoils after a 1-1 draw at Goodison Park. Liverpool, on the other hand, must pick up the pieces after their 3-0 rout by the home team, at Old Trafford. 50% of BetUknow community bet on Liverpool to win while the rest spread evenly between a draw and a win for The Toffees.

Despite all this, Liverpool's top predictors would place their bet on a draw. More then that, when we check the opinions of Everton’s top predictors, we can see they go with a win for their home team. All in all – the top predictors of both teams go against the opinion of the majority of BetUknow community.

The second match is the interesting encounter between Tottenham and Newcastle. Newcastle must win to secure their next season in the Premier League, not to mention narrowing the gap from Spurs to only 5 points. Almost 60% of the community thinks that Tottenham will win the match, and most of them think this win will be a decisive one, with more than one goal to separate the teams.
Newcastle's top predictors also believe Tottenham to be the happier side at the end of the day, but, most surprisingly, Tottenham's top predictors put no faith in Spurs and they predict this will end in a draw.

Before you run to the bookies, take a moment to think and decide whether to go with the majority, or to put your faith in the opinions of the few-but-experts. Tough choice indeed…

Merseyside Derby Action This Sunday

The Merseyside derby in recent years has been little more than a match between two local rivals. But this year there is more at stake as Liverpool and Everton are fighting each other for the fourth and final Champions League spot. What more can you ask for, to spice up the local rivalry?

Liverpool fans could point the finger of blame at referee Steve Bennett for the three-goal defeat at Old Trafford, but they should look no further than the idiotic behaviour of Javier Mascherano. Truth be told, the Merseyside Reds just aren’t good enough to challenge Manchester United for the Premiership this season.

Liverpool must pick up the pieces and get ready for Everton at Anfield this Sunday. Rafa has got two last chances to save his job. The first will be in the derby on Sunday, where it's not just Rafa's job on the line, but also Liverpool's pride is at stake. The second one awaits him the following week, when they meet Arsenal in the Champions League quarter finals. Would you trade jobs with Rafa? Who wouldn’t!

On the other side of town there is Everton, they are having an excellent season, and have been in great form, even though they did stumble twice in their last two matches against Fulham and West Ham. Had they of won instead of drawing last Saturday at Goodison Park, they would be level on points with Liverpool. This shows just how well they are doing this term.

In the last meeting between the teams Liverpool were the better side having seven shots to target, compared to Everton's one. Not surprising then that Liverpool players scored all three goals in the match, which finished 2-1. Everton ended the game with 9 men, and had a stonewall penalty controversially denied by referee Mark Clattenburg in the dying seconds of the match. Expect to see fireworks.

The bookies believe Liverpool are clear favourite at 4/5, while Everton’s price is an attractive 18/5.

Chelsea - Arsenal match preview

As we get closer to the end of the season, each and every match of the leading sides gets more and more important. The impact of this multiplies when two of the teams face each other, and this is exactly what happens on Sunday, when Chelsea host Arsenal.

Chelsea’s 4-4 draw with Tottenham on Wednesday was an extremely entertaining match. Still, while all who support (or work for) Tottenham went home with a smile smeared on their faces, Avram Grant knew that the draw puts a huge dent in Chelsea’s title aspirations. He is well aware to his promise to play in a much more attractive style than his predecessor, but when this comes on the expense of silverware – it will not be acceptable by Roman Abramovic.

Arsenal are on a run of four draws in a raw, and this took them from a 5 points lead at the head of the table, to 2nd place, allowing Manchester United to storm forward. This is a huge test for Arsene Wenger and his youngsters as anything but a win will send the out crashing from the title race.

In such cases, most people tend to bet on the draw result. After all, too many of this kind of matches provided a very cautious style of football and when both sides are not trying their best to win – no wonder it ends in a draw. This is exactly what we see when we look at the way the BetUknow community look at this match, as almost 35% of them suggest a draw is in orders, and the rest split almost evenly between Chelsea and Arsenal. The interesting fact is that the 10 top predictors of Chelsea suggest that despite playing in Stamford Bridge, Grant is going to come out as loser from this match. It’s quite a risky prediction, but I guess they are not Chelsea’s top predictors for nothing…

All in all, Chelsea do not look strong enough to win this, as they tend to fail in their important matches. Can Arsenal take advantage of Chelsea’s fragility? Well, only time can tell…

Drifting Away

Arsenal’s recent slump continues, and Middlesbrough were the latest team to take advantage of a generous Gunners side. It seems that Arsenal find it incredibly hard when facing teams fighting for their lives. As surprising as it may sound – the lack of quality of teams such as Wigan, Birmingham, and Middlesbrough, make life much tougher than it should be for Arsenal.

When Arsenal play teams of equal standing, such as Manchester United or AC Milan, the players find more space to show their silky skills, as their opponents are also trying to win the game. We could see this in the 2nd leg of the Champions League match with AC Milan, where the Arsenal forwards found a lot of space in behind AC Milan’s midfielders, as the Milanese were thinking not only of how not to concede, but also of how to score a much needed goal.

This changes when Arsenal face sides such as Wigan, who are delighted with a home draw against a vastly superior side. Due to this, neither Steve Bruce nor Gareth Southgate felt it was necessary to try and push forward. I am not sure if Southgate planned to score the goal, but it seems that Aliadiere enjoys playing against his old club…

Arsenal, despite their skilful players, find it hard to cope when all the opposition players are sitting behind the ball. It forces the Gunners to leave their delightful passing style as it clearly doesn’t work, and focus on swinging in balls in to the penalty area, in the hope that one of Adebayor, Van Persie, or Bendtner can find the space to head the ball home. In recent weeks – it really hasn’t worked for them.

Unless Arsene Wenger finds a solution to the “All Out Defence” playing style of his opponents, Arsenal can kiss that Premiership title goodbye, as Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo, along with their greater depth of squad, will prove too strong to overcome.

Football Betting Tips - Day 30

This time I'll try to give you some tips regarding two tricky matches. The first one is the relegation battle between Birmingham and Kevin Keegan's poor Newcastle. BetUknow members predictions are: 41.3% think Newcastle will finally win, 35% thinks that Birmingham will be the one to breathe some fresh air. The interesting detail is that Newcastle top predictors put their faith on Birmingham.
The second match involves Manchester City and Tottenham. The Citizens must win in order to keep their Champions League dream alive and their top predictors think they will do just that. Still, most of BetUknow members predict the match to end wither in a draw or with Tottenham winning.

Football Betting Tips – The UEFA cup

Round of 16 2nd legs brings some tension regarding the Premier League teams.
Tottenham will travel to The Netherlands in a mission to overcome a 0-1 home loss to PSV.
Almost 50% of BetUknow members think that Tottenham will accomplish the mission, but both Tottenham's and PSV's top predictors sense this will end in a draw.
The second encounter involves Sporting Lisbon and Bolton. More then 60 % of all BetUknow members go with Sporting. This includes both teams' top predictors. Bolton will have to do something extraordinary to eliminate Sporting Lisbon and, in my opinion, they should concentrate on their away match at Wigan, taking place on Sunday.
The last match involving a Premier League team is the interesting tie between Everton and Fiorentina. Everton's dreams of reaching the UEFA Cup finals seem unliekely to fulfill. In my opinion, despite their home advantage The Toffees will need to show something special if living the dream is to be an option.. 63% of BetUknow members believe that Everton will win this. Surprisingly enough, this includes both teams' top predictors, but, most of the predictors believe that it won't be enough, as they predict Everton to win by a margin of only one goal.

This will be the night the English sides will kiss the UEFA Cup goodbye.

A Helping Hand

Chelsea’s manager Avram Grant can feel grateful to the FA, who have managed to conjure up a fixture list which allows him to recover easily after some dreadful performances.

Since becoming manager, Grant has been busy fighting his critics, even after some excellent results that Chelsea have achieved on the pitch. Unfortunately an attractive style of football is nowhere to be seen. Chelsea have remained the same boring side they were under the leadership of the charismatic Mourinho, and they are still playing out dull 1-0 wins over much weaker teams.

The tide began to turn with the humiliating defeat to Tottenham in the Carling Cup final. This gave most of the leading newspapers the opportunity to criticize Grant once again, questioning his ability to manage a side such as Chelsea. They should have noticed that Chelsea’s next match was at West Ham. Alan Curbishly’s side is the perfect choice to allow any team to recover, since they lack any backbone, and indeed, an easy 4-0 victory over The Hammers allowed Grant to prove his critics wrong, and give him some much needed breathing space.

Just when things started to quieten down, Chelsea travelled up north to Barnsley in the 6th round of the FA Cup. Once more Chelsea suffered a disgraceful defeat, this time at the hands of a Championship team. These highly paid superstars were no match for the grit and determination of an inspired Barnsley team, a side placed 34 places below Chelsea, and fighting for survival in the Championship.

As expected, knives were drawn, but luckily enough for Grant, the under-achieving Derby County await his team. It is almost a certainty that Chelsea will get the convincing win they need to move even closer to Arsenal, with Grant dreaming of the prospect of winning the Premiership title. This will wipe out any bad nightmares of the defeat at Oakwell. He can dream, until of course, Chelsea contrive to lose once more…

Football Betting Tips – FA premiership day 29

This is my second review of the EPL on my Prediction Colum. Today I have decided to focus on the Sunderland – Everton match, which is a bit misleading, with Everton still fighting for Champions League spot and Sunderland trying to survive in the Premiership. Both Sunderland's and Everton's top predictors go with Everton, but in the same time, more than 30% of all BetUknow members think that Everton won’t win. A tricky one indeed…

That’s The Way To Do It

Arsenal secured one of their greatest achievements in recent history, by defeating European Cup holders AC Milan by 2 goals to nil, marking the end of an era for AC Milan, forcing the Italians to bring in younger fresher talent into their squad for future challenges.Beside the fact that Arsenal are the first English team ever to beat AC Milan at the San Siro, what impressed the most was the level of football showed by the youngsters, who totally outplayed Milan’s veterans. Arsenal did not try to win through hard tackles and fast breaks, they pushed hard for victory with great skill, grit and determination, throwing the attacking Theo Walcott on for the defensive-oriented Emmanuel Eboue. This impressive victory came just in time for Arsenal, to end their recent slump after failing to win any of their last four matches. Arsene Wenger has once again shown his incredible managerial abilities, and will have to make sure this win will be the springboard for the upcoming struggle in the race for the Premiership title.Once again his young group of warriors have proved everyone wrong by pushing forward in the two most important campaigns, but with Manchester United on their shoulders they must be careful, otherwise Arsenal will end up with nothing at all.

Football Betting Tips – Predicting the Champions League first knockout round

This is my first review of the UEFA's Champions League on my Prediction Column.
Today I've decided to concentrate on two interesting matches: The first one is the encounter involving Real Madrid and AS Roma. After Real lost 2-1 in the first leg, they need to win by one goal to nil, in order to proceed to the quarter finals. 58% of BetUknow members think that Real have what it takes to come out as winners. This contradicts Real's top predictors, who think the game will end in a draw.
The second match see Olympiacos come to Stamford Bridge, to face Chelsea.
More then 80% of BetUknow’s members think that Chelsea will win, with more than half of them thinking the margin will be greater than one goal.

Back To Square One

Just when Avram Grant thought he was winning over all the doubters as Chelsea manager following a great run of results, along came the Carling Cup final, where Chelsea were soundly beaten by fellow Londoners Tottenham Hotspur.As if the defeat was not bad enough, a lot of questions were raised regarding Grant’s squad selection and tactics, as Chelsea were totally outplayed throughout the whole match. Yet, there was more to come, as some of the people who raised those questions were the players themselves, who failed to understand Grant’s tactics.The combination of this practically destroyed everything that Grant has managed to build before, and sent everyone back to the very beginning of his time as Chelsea manager. All of a sudden Grant has to prove once again, to the fans, the media and the players, he is fit to do the job.This makes the upcoming week an extremely important one; with both the 2nd leg of the Champions League encounter with Olympiacos, as well as the tricky FA Cup tie with Barnsley taking place. As a matter of fact, Grant has everything to lose, because everyone expects Chelsea to win both of these matches, against inferior opposition.Failing in either of these two matches, not to mention the possibility of failing in them both, will mark a quick end to the Grant era. Not too many pundits or supporters will be sorry to see him go as he is seen as Abramovich’s puppet. Grant is a phenomenon that no one has actually managed to understand.

Champions League AC Milan vs. Arsenal match preview

Despite dominating the majority of the match, Arsenal drew blanks when hosting AC Milan. Now in order to progress they will have to score. AC Milan will try to make up for a horrible season by winning the Champions League, but they do not seem to be strong enough. This one looks like a score draw, which will send Arsenal to the next round.

Football Betting Tips - Day 28

Hi all,

This is the first post on my weekly prediction column. Here I'll post the crowd's choice regarding the Premier League and Champions League matches directly from BetUknow.co.uk .
At the Premier League day 28 I have decided to concentrate on two interesting matches :
The first one is Bolton Wanderers vs. Liverpool. 66% thinks that Liverool will win the match, 22.4% thinks that the game will end in a draw including Bolton's top predictiors.
The second one is Everton vs. Portsmouth. Regarding my last post about the battle for next year’s final Champions League spot, the 10 top Everton predictors thinks that the game will end in a draw even though 53% thinks that everton will win the match and Everton finished only two matches in a draw out of 8 home league games.

Lets test my tips...

Even Better Than The Red Thing

The battle for next year’s final Champions League spot is really starting to heat up after Everton completed a wonderful away win over Manchester City, this puts them in 4th place, 3 points clear of Liverpool, who have a game in hand. Everton’s away win was worth more than the 3 points they gained. Manchester City have managed to climb up the table due to their impressive home record. Knowing that their away form is so poor, Manchester City have made the City of Manchester stadium a fortress this season, going 12 matches unbeaten. But despite all this, Everton dominated this encounter, producing numerous scoring opportunities, even after going two up. This left Manchester City dumfounded, and increasingly frustrated. After all, they are not used to being on the back foot when playing in front of their home fans.This win is a warning sign for Liverpool. Rafa Benitez’s lads were supposed to fight for the Premiership title, but now see their local rivals taking their Champions League spot. True, Liverpool’s squad is packed with many world-class players, but it seems that Everton have got the edge in two areas: The strength of the team, and the trust in their manager.Since it is unlikely that Everton’s great teamwork will suddenly disappear, and since David Moyes is clearly a superior manager, Liverpool will have to fight hard to get their Champions League spot back. They have the ability to do so, but this year Everton are worthy opponents, if not more.