Week Twenty-Six Recap
Pundit | Last Week's Profit/Loss | Current Balance |
Luke Bowley | £22.91 | £18.91 |
Craig Clark | -£5.00 | £18.00 |
Karl Jones | -£14.00 | £18.00 |
Simon Walsh | -£5.00 | £3.00 |
Dan Williams | -£4.00 | -£8.00 |
David Boyle | -£5.00 | -£7.20 |
Chris Weatherspoon | N/A | -£19.50 |
A big win for Luke last time around, backing Sunderland's clash with Arsenal to feature under 2.5 goals and also correctly calling a victory for Bristol City against Nottingham Forest. Certainly food for thought going forward for the rest of our tipping strategies as Luke's two single wins were enough to catapult him to the top of the leaderboard.
Onto this week's picks.
Karl Jones
After a couple of weeks without success, I'm upping my stake here. No, not to chase proceedings, but to hopefully get a return off one of the trends of Sunderland's season so far. Of Steven Fletcher's 10 league goals, seven of them have come on the road. He's favourably-priced to score first, but we'll err on the side of caution whilst hoping he adds to that tally - Fletcher to score at any time.
Elsewhere, Watford are out-scoring all before them of late and host a Derby that have only won once on the road since October. In League Two, Port Vale has stuttered of late but have won 9/16 games away from home; again a team that should simply have too much firepower for their opponents.
- Steven Fletcher to score at any time - 5/2 - £10 Stake
- Watford to beat Derby, Port Vale to beat Torquay - 3.8 - £5 Stake
Luke Bowley
Going down a similar route to Karl here, and with Fletcher so prolific away from home, why on earth not. This will be a tricky away trip for the Black Cats, but if anyone's going to score, it's going to be the Scotsman, so I'm going for him to be Sunderland's first goalscorer.
Next I'm going for two home defeats for sides that are in absolute disarray at the moment. Wolves look hopeless at the moment and have yet to win under Dean Saunders. While the Championship is always unpredictable, and while Cardiff are certainly capable of losing this one, I'd still expect the league leaders to win. Elsewhere, while Inter looked like Juventus' best challenges for the title just a couple of months ago, they've since completely collapsed and are in abysmal form. Their city rivals on the other hand are in the ascendancy, with Mario Balotelli on excellent goalscoring form since his move to his boyhood club. This is both clubs biggest match of the season, and the form guide would suggest an Milan win.
- Steven Fletcher first to score for Sunderland - 7/2 - £3 Stake
- Cardiff to beat Wolves, AC Milan to beat Inter - 5/1 - £5 Stake
David Boyle
Well it looks as if I'll have to back Steven Fletcher too... wait, wait, I'm joking! There were a couple of standout stats that caught my eye this week when looking at past clashes between Sunderland and West Brom which seem to indicate that goals are on the cards. Firstly each of the past four top-flight games between the two sides have seen over 3.5 goals. Also looking a little further back only one of the past seven clashes has gone under 2.5 goals. I'm going to go for it and go with the form guide and back over 3.5 goals at a very nice price.
Elsewhere I am going to head to the Championship and back Watford to see off Derby - keeping things nice and simply this week with a single.
- West Brom vs Sunderlad, over 3.5 goals - 4/1 - £2.50 Stake
- Watford to beat Derby - 5/6 - £5 Stake
Simon Walsh
Dave may have broken the streak but it's about time Steven Fletcher hit the back of the net, and it makes it into my bet of the week too. That said, I'm not confident to say whether or not he'll do it first or last, so I'm just going for him to score in a 1-1 draw with the Baggies, handily priced at 33/1.
Elsewhere I'm looking at wins for Leyton Orient over creepy Crawley, Lille to overcome Ajaccio and Mainz to overcome Wolfsburg.
- Steven Fletcher scores in a 1-1 draw - 33/1 - £1 Stake
- Leyton Orient, Lille and Mainz all to win - 12/1 - £2 Stake
Craig Clark
Sunderland face a West Brom side who ended an abysmal run of results by beating a resurgent Liverpool at Anfield early last week. They'll be buoyed by that result and we are a side they enjoy playing against at the Hawthorns; see last season's 4-0 hammering. I'm not usually negative but backing the Lads has failed to return me anything. I'd be happily out of pocket if West Brom do not beat us 2-1 but that's what my money is going on.
Elsewhere I'm ditching the over/unders betting after last week's loss. In Argentina, I expect Lanus to beat a stuttering Velez Sarsfield - who will have half an eye on their midweek Copa Libertadores match in Uruguay - while Arsenal de Sarandi should win or draw against a woefully out of form Argentinos Juniors.
- West Brom to beat Sunderland 2-1 - 7/1 - £2 stake
- Lanus to win and Arsenal de Sarandi double chance (win or draw) - 4/1 - £5 Stake