The EPL heads into match week 3 and its human nature to overreact to what we’ve seen the first 180 minutes from clubs. Have oddsmakers at BetOnline.AG made the necessary changes (good or bad) to reflect current form? James Kempton is here to tell you why it’s not time to panic and which teams may offer betting value going forward.
Cherry Pick
Bournemouth has started the season slowly and I’m interested to see how they get on this week. The result they obtain at home to Man City isn’t nearly as important for me as the manner of their performance. Over in the UK relegation markets they sit seventh right now at a price of +450. After this weekend’s difficult fixture against City the Cherries head into September with a trip to The Emirates to face Arsenal, host Brighton, away at Everton, and close the month entertaining a seemingly rejuvenated Leicester side. Their next match after the international break comes on October 14th and sees them head to Wembley to take on a Spurs side who should finally be acclimated to life at their new home. Those six games look tough to me and even if they perform above their capabilities there’s a scenario where they could pick up a MAXIMUM of just four to five points. If that’s the case, the current market price on relegation looks like an absolute steal.
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A Lot of Buzz
Watford resembles a solid outfit and I keep banging on about Marco Silva’s men, but backing them to finish in the top half of the table at a price of +800 looks an amazing runner. They may not even need a positive result in this weekend’s winnable match at home to Brighton to achieve that season long goal, although if they do it goes a long way towards obtaining necessary points required for a top ten finish. At the current market price they are definitely worth a long look since last season you only needed 45 points to finish tenth. By Saturday night the Hornets may already have five to seven of those precious points with thirty-five games to go!
Do You Bet The Big Game?
Historically the match between Liverpool and Arsenal has been one of the most entertaining duels in league play jam-packed full of great goals. Recent meetings at Anfield have seen the home side go (3-4-4), and despite Liverpool’s decent home form against top six sides they’ve struggled in this particular spot against the Gunners. Over 2.5 goals is currently on an 8-2 run when these sides collide in all competitions, and the last eight meetings have seen thirty-five total goals despite a 0-0 draw sprinkled in. Liverpool has scored at least two goals in each of the last four meetings at Anfield, while the visitors have netted at least once in each of their last fourteen trips to this ground going back to 2007. However, let me pour water on your rush to the counter for a wager on the over. Last weekend their outings in the league saw them score just one goal between them against far inferior opposition. Yes, the trends yell over three but recent frailties may suggest otherwise. Just because it’s the big game of the weekend doesn’t mean you have to fire a bet!
Road Warriors
West Ham takes to the road for a third straight week due to the World Athletics Championship that took place in their adopted home during early August. This week they head to Newcastle looking to pick up their first points of the season following defeats away at Manchester United and Southampton. The stats on teams playing three straight Premier League road games are very limited as it’s a rather infrequent occurrence. The Hammers are lucky that they are playing a poor Newcastle side because if it was against opposition of any real quality I’d give them very little chance of obtaining a positive result.
Huddersfield
Pump the brakes people! Before the season started this team was predicted by most onlookers to be relegation fodder and probably have their fate sealed by Christmas. Fast forward two weeks following wins against a woeful Crystal Palace side weighed down by the expectation of home favoritism and a Newcastle club who’ve hardly scored since Alan Shearer retired; suddenly they are everybody’s second team? Stop it, they’re not Leicester City part two. Remember Blackpool on that opening day when they smashed seventeen goals past Wigan? Ok, well maybe it was just four goals that the Tangerines scored that fateful day but can you remember what happened to them? Relegation. The same will probably happen to the Terriers once the long lazy summer evenings turn into dark cold winter nights and the real battle for EPL survival begins. In view of that you may consider taking a piece of the +300 on an instant return to Championship life with that ticket sure to give a rooting interest until the very last day of the season.
Back to Bournemouth?!
It’s unusual to see a line of -1.5 hung on a road team when they’ve failed to cover a similar line at home in their previous game. However, we can all agree that Man City are a far better side than Bournemouth and it would seem that City really has a big edge over the Cherries. City has won the four EPL meetings between the sides by a cumulative score line of 15-1 and all by at least two goals. It has been a sluggish start for City so laying such a big line is fraught with the obvious dangers. The books know that nobody is looking to support the home win so they’ve hung a line out there begging for home dog money. Consider this scenario the English Premier League’s version of the Cleveland Browns +7.
