Brighton and Hove Albion

Ladbrokes Premier League Treble . Leicester, Aston Villa and Brighton all to Win 9/1 (was 8/1)

With the Premier League back in action this weekend the bookies are eager to make more profit off the unsuspecting punter and today’s focus is on the ever greedy Ladbrokes and their Premier League Treble.
Leicester are at home to Wolves this afternoon and with fans being allowed back into stadiums the home side advantage must be taken into consideration and with each new season brings the uncertainty of lack of stats. Looking at last season’s last 5 games for these teams Leicester won 3 out of the 5 with 2 being away to Man Utd and Chelsea with the other win at home against the mighty Man City. These two sides last met on 8 Nov where the winning goal was a 15th minute penalty by Vardy. Wolverhampton are full of uncertainty with a new manager in the saddle and a tentative vote on the side of Leicester goes to this Match.
The next game in the treble is the newly promoted Watford hosting Aston Villa and who would have thought Brentford would have given Arsenal a spanking last night, could the same happen this afternoon with these two teams? I have Traore in my VirginBet fives team and really hope he scores a hat-trick. Watford scored in every home game last season bar one which was against Cardiff in December. Aston Villa, last season, came out on a winning mission being victorious in all four of their opening games scoring a total of 12 goals. Home side advantage may play a part in this game but on previous goal scoring ability and the loss of Grealish to Man City not withstanding another tentative vote goes to Aston Villa.
Brighton travel to Burnley today and this it would seem is likely to be the bogey match. Winning just 5 away games last season their start to the 20/21 season did not inspire confidence. This fixture in February ended 1-1 and ended goalless in their previous meeting to that. perhaps 2-2 might be a progressive step as home advantage with a full ground today may make the difference. Both of these sides were in danger of sinking into the Championship last season and my vote goes to a score draw
As with all these trebles better odds may be found elsewhere and the same odds can be got on smarkets and Betfair sportbook is offering 9.5 (17/2) unboosted.
This treble is a tricky one as there is no real recent form to reference and with all things being equal a max stake bet is out of the question but a sneaky quid may well be acceptable
Good luck with whatever you decide to do and please gamble responsibly

Ladbrokes Premier League Treble. Brighton Leicester and Tottenham all to win.

After finishing my Timeform1-2-3 series in time for the start of Cheltenham next week (read about it here) I am back to picking the bones out of the bookmakers boosted bets. Todays target is Labrokes again. Ladbrokes are incessantly putting adverts on the radio telling all to gamble responsibly and then go and lure unsuspecting punters into their tentacles with these little gems.
Lets look at the Brighton match first as they have plainly put this in alphabetical order to hide it in plain veiw.
Brighton are away to Southampton today in the 12 o’clock kickoff and the odds suggest an away win could be on here. Southamptons home record of late has not been easy reading, having lost 3 and drawn 1 in the last 4 games. Brighton on the other hand have been victorious while playing away against both Leeds and Liverpool, drawn against Burnley but lost against West Brom. Brighton more than Southampton are needing back end season wins to lift them ever more away from the dredded drop zone. A factor against Brighton might be that Southampton have won their home matches when playing against teams that are lower than them in the league, 2-0 Newcastle, 2-0 West Brom, 3-0 Shefield Utd. In the past 7 encounters in this league Brighton have failed to win with Southampton winning 3 times and draws coming in the other games (All score draws by the way)
Next up is Leicester City who are hosting Sheffield Utd this afternoon. As most of you will be aware the tussle at the top is getting just a little more than exciting. With the top spot albeit lost in the clouds the battle for a champions league place can only really be described as savage. Sheffield Utd, even though all seems lost, managed to deny 3 points to Manchester Utd. Leicester cannot afford to lose with Tottenham Everton and West Ham all lookig at that 4th league spot with envious eyes. Recent form suggests that Leicester should win this quite comfortably but nothing should ever be a given in this game. Offensivley Leicester have scored 48 goals in 28 matches whereas sheffield have only managed 16. Leicesters defensive record is not great allowing 32 goals past them in the same 28 games.
Tottenham are away to Arsenal in this most famous of all North London Derbys. This fact alone would prevent me from including this game in any acca! Both teams have just played in the Europa League last Thursday (Both Winning) so fatigue must play a part. A win for Tottenham today would put them into 5th should West Ham lose to Manchester Utd later this evening but Tottenhams away form recently might suggest a different result having won only the most recent game against Fulham 0-1 losing to West Ham 2-1, Man City 3-0 and Brighton 1-0. Head to Head stats are against Tottenham by 13 – 8 (Arsenal wins 6, Draws 7, to Tottenhams 8 wins)

Ladbrokes have boosted this bet to 11.0 from 9.0 but you can get 11.5 on the Smarkets exchange if you are really intent on putting money on this

Betornot 😉

West Ham, Brighton and Norwich All to Win

Today I am looking at the SkyBet Saturday Soccer Price Boost. It is West Ham, Brighton all to win boosted from 7/2 to 5/1. West Ham are playing Doncaster at Home, Brighton are also at home playing Blackpool and Norwich are away at Barnsley. The “Helpful Information” provided by SkyBet relates to the Super 6 game and the percentage of players that have picked the above teams in their selections. These are as follows.
West Ham 98%
Brighton 90%
Norwich 81%
These figures were correct as of 19:00 21/01/2021

The following facts were also published on the day

West Ham have won their last 4 games in all competitions
Brighton will be in a confident mood after a 1-0 win over Leeds last weekend
Norwich have won their last 4 games in all competitions and ran out 1-0 winners over Barnsley in the league at the beginning of January

These figures were correct as of 19:00 21/01/2021

Lets see if I can see why SkyBet have chosen these particular matches

West Ham v Doncaster
West Ham, being 7th in the premiership at the moment, are plainly favourites to win this match as Doncaster Rovers are 4th in League One. But this is the F.A. Cup so a serious look at previous form is warrented . West Ham have only played one game so far in this competition, which they won, but only by 1 goal in the 83rd minute against Stockport County, a fifth tier side!
Doncaster have played 3 matches in the F.A.Cup this year all being away scoring 8 goals and conceding just 2. The victories were over United of Manchester, Carlisle United and Doncaster Rovers.

Brighton and Hove Albion v Blackpool
Newport County held Brighton to a 1-1 Draw in the 3rd round with Brighton finally winning on penalties.
Blackpool on the other hand have only conceded 2 goals in the cup this year. This was against West Bromwich Albion in the 3rd Round finally winning on penalties. The other 2 games were against Eastbourne and Harrogate which finished 0-3 and 0-4 respectively.

Barnsley v Norwich City
Both of these teams are in the Championship League albeit at opposite ends. Barnsley progressed to the 4th round by beating Tranmere Rovers 2-0.
Norwich City, being at the top of the Championship League, will be clear favourites in this contest especially dispatching Coventry City 2-0 in the last round

At the time of writing this none of the team sheets had been released. But I think that SkyBet have been very canny with their match selections. The only game that I would put any substantial amount of cash on would be Norwich to beat Barnsley.