RADIO
A new month brought us slightly better fortune with two picks from four and we hope that improves heading into Thursday and beyond. Two Everton corners away from looking like bagging a parlay at +1550 and nearly predicting two correct scores. West Ham burst our balloon managing to pull out a shock 3-2 victory against Chelsea in a game where they only had three shots on target. But there's no time to lick our wounds as the English Premier League rolls on. Each game I'll be giving you the intel to find value bets, offering my pick to bet on and predicting the correct score. Here's how we have started off:
- Picks total - 12 out of 25
- Picks yesterday - 2 out of 4
- Parlays - 2 out of 8
Before you read on, remember these important things: Betting on sports should be fun. If you aren't having fun with it, stop. Never bet what you can't afford to lose. And if you don't agree with my picks, don't bet on it. I'm far from being a professional gambler and just enjoy a flutter on the soccer. All I'm doing is looking at stats to try and find potential value in the likelier outcomes. I'll predict the score of each game and will just be picking the bet I think offers the best value so it'll be down to you what you bet on and how. Feel free to parlay any picks too.
Teams have now played two or three games each so we have a better understanding of what a 3-month hiatus has on the teams. Playing games without any fans in the stadium is still something of an anomaly that impacts teams differently so it'll be a wise move to take things slower and more sensible until the end of the season. Feel free to reach me on Twitter @Baseball_Jimbo for any info, have a pop for any duds and (hopefully) pats on the back for winners. All odds are taken from Pinnacle or Draftkings Sportsbooks and were correct at the time of writing.
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Tottenham @ Sheffield United - 1:00 pm ET
Tottenham 8th - 45 pts
Sheffield United 10th - 44 pts
Tottenham has only played two games in the last two weeks so should come into this game fresh having had a week off and their last game was won at a canter. They find themselves seven points adrift of the top-5 and a possible Champions League spot for next season so need a win to keep up the pressure on those above them. Their away record has been poor all season with just three away league wins in 15 games. Their road games generally have goals as they've only failed to score away three times but have kept just a solitary clean sheet in those games (a 0-0 draw at Watford).
Sheffield United has had a dreadful restart to the league. A 0-0 draw at second from bottom Aston Villa was followed by consecutive 3-0 defeats then elimination from the FA Cup at the weekend. That FA Cup defeat did see them score their first goal since the resumption but their three straight blanks in the league aren't without reason. They do struggle to score as their 30 goals are the fewest of all teams in the top half. But they had a perfectly good goal not given against Aston Villa, only lost to Newcastle after being reduced to ten men in the second half (when the game was 0-0) and were then beaten by Manchester United, which there's certainly no shame in.
These two teams played out a 1-1 draw earlier in the season and I think it'll be a similarly tight game here, decided by a single goal if there is a winner. Sheffield United's form since the restart makes it difficult to back them and I'd lean towards a fresher Tottenham side taking the points. The other area of interest is the yellow card odds. In Tottenham's two games, they've received two yellow cards while Sheffield United has had just three yellows in three league games. Two of them given to the same player in the same game and then just two issued in their FA Cup game. The referee for this encounter is Chris Kavanagh who has issued 72 yellow cards in 21 games (zero red cards) so is one of the more lenient refs in the league.
Score prediction: Sheffield United 0 - 1 Tottenham (Pinnacle odds +550)
Betting Pick:
- Cards - Total cards under 3.5 @ -115 (Draftkings)
Liverpool @ Manchester City - 3:15 pm ET
Liverpool 1st - 86 pts
Manchester City 2nd - 63 pts
Only one place separates the top two teams but there are 23 points between them and Manchester City's defeat at Chelsea last week crowned Liverpool as champions of England for the first time in 30 years. I'm just going to hold my hands up here and admit, I have no idea what way this game is going to go. Here's why........
Since the start of the 2016/17 season, they've met seven times in the league. Liverpool has three wins, Manchester City two wins and two draws. The scores have varied from a 5-0 win for Manchester City, a 4-3 win for Liverpool and a 0-0 draw. Anything can and normally does happen between these two teams in recent years.
This will be Manchester City's fifth game in 15 days since the resumption and Liverpool's third. With Liverpool already crowned champions, they have nothing to play for except pride and putting an exclamation point on the season. Manchester City are going to put their focus on the Champions League restart on August 07th, a competition they've been desperate to win for years. And a competition they might be excluded from for the next two years, pending an appeal for breaking financial rules.
I wouldn't be surprised if this game finishes 4-0 either way, nor if it ended 0-0. There's not much point in either side playing passive and I do think they'll both want to put on a show in an almost symbolic way. Kevin de Bruyne has been outstanding for some time and has netted in all three starts in June, all from set-pieces, so makes a nice prop bet play here. The two sides have scored 147 goals between them this season and I do think they'll both find the way to goal here.
There also appears to be some value in bets involving corners. In their earlier league meeting, despite losing 3-1, Manchester City had 13 corners to Liverpool's 4. Manchester City leads the league in corners taken with 247 and while Liverpool are third in that regard, they are still someway short with 203. Manchester City has also only given up a meagrely 84 corners in their 31 league games this season (compared to Liverpool's 136) and has had either two or three more corners than their opponents in the three league games since the league resumed. Manchester City should have more possession and spend a lot of time probing in and around the Liverpool penalty area and while the Liverpool defense is more than capable of keeping them at bay, they will likely end up conceding numerous corners in doing so.
You need to go back to eight league meetings ago (March 02nd, 2016) for the last time Liverpool had more corners in a league meeting between these two teams. Even then, that was on three corners to two in a game they won 3-0.
Score prediction: Manchester City 2 - 2 Liverpool (Pinnacle odds +1150)
Betting Pick:
- Corners - Home team corners over 5.5 @ -159 (Draftkings)
You can go over 6.5 corners for odds of +120.
Parlay
- Parlay both picks @ +205 (Draftkings)
- Tottenham draw no bet & Manchester City draw no bet @ +114 (Draftkings)
Good luck with those EPL bets and remember to bet responsibly! Check back for more EPL betting picks this week!
