Weekend 21/09 - Post 1

Morning all,

We had no joy again last week, but I think we can take some heart that one of the selections was a good bet at the prices. Stoke were most unfortunate not to at least score against City, who played some good football and created a host of chances. City were off the pace, but managed to come away with a point. For me, 5/1 was a really good bet. The Fulham-WBA game was the opposite, with the Baggies managing to at least score their first league goal of the season, but it was a bit of undeserved equaliser in terms of the game. They were poor last week, but they do have some new signings to come in, and sometimes goals in the circumstances like last week good help them from here on in.

You may gauge my feelings towards the Prem is that there is some leverage in backing big-priced dogs at times. I feel the last couple of years the quality gap has shrunk somewhat, which at times is not reflected in the market prices. I see teams like WBA, Southampton & Swansea to name three as very decent sides in terms of footballing ability and I like to support them.

So, maybe a tad obvious, we are looking straight to the Liverpool v Southampton game. Liverpool have been an odd team this season - looking excellent in patches, but also showing a resilient dogged mentality in holding on to narrow leads. You can make cases in all of their matches. They dominated Stoke on the opening day, but needed a late penalty save to rescue their wastefulness, against Villa they were superb in the first 45 mins, only to drop off and adopt a completely different approach and see out the result. The Man U game is an interesting one, they never really got into top gear, but didn't need to, whilst against Swansea we saw the pattern emerge again. I think Rodgers hit the nail on the head - they conceded the control element once Coutinho went off, as that outball/missing link vanished. Aspas was brought on to play the same role, but he doesn't yet appear to be up to speed. Today the face a Southampton side who I like, and who will go there with a freedom to play, and they certainly can. Pochettino has impressed me, they are set up to be resolute, with a license to counter at pace and at will. The emphasis here is on Liverpool and Rodgers maybe inclined to not be as pragmatic and sit off as much as he has done this season with them being at home, and being a game they are rated as big chances to win. Both sides to control the football, but I think Liverpool will edge the possession count. If they start with Aspas, I worry that too much of their play will be in front of Southampton, and they should be able to contain Liverpool if so. I can't see too many goals so we'll have a couple of bets.

1pt Southampton +0.5 @ 2.47 188bet
0.5pt Southampton to win @ 11/2 generally
0.5pt Under 2.5 goals @ 2.05 Pinnacle & Dafabet.

I am looking at a couple of other things at the minute, so there may be a post shortly.