Tag Archives: Chelsea

ITV7 Monday

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ITV7 Saturday

I just picked my seven winners for @itv7. Don’t miss your free chance to win the jackpot #ITV7 https://itv7.itv.com/play

Ladbrokes Premier League Treble. Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs All to win

Ladbrokes have chosen the 3 big London clubs to create this interesting treble. Boosted from 9.0 (8/1) to 11.0 (10/1) seems a fair price as 10.0 is all you can get on the smarkets exchange.

First Game on the list is Leicester v (The Mighty) Arsenal, and at first sight Leicesters form from the last 4 home and away games is won 3 drawn 1 in contrast to Arsenal who have lost 3 and Won 1. It is all very tense at the top and leicester are level on points with Man Utd in their race to catch the seemingly unstoppable Man City. Arsenal’s last premiership away match was against Aston Villa 22 days ago and were beaten with a “surprise” 2nd minute goal. The Wolves game 4 days earlier was just a nightmare for them as 2 red cards and a penalty sealed this and very probably the villa game too with 2 suspensions and 4 out injured. Leicester have a great deal to gain from this match as Man Utd will need to beat an inform Chelsea. With Barnes only coming on late against Prague on Thursday may well see him fresh for this premiership clash.

Chelsea are are narrow favourites to win this game over Man Utd and should they do so and Leicester beat Arsenal it would pitch them 1 point above West Ham into 4th place. Chelsea are on form since losing manager Frank Lampard and Momentum may well carry them on to victory here. The very real battle for a mathematical top spot for Manchester cannot be discounted however and their goal scoring ability playing away from home speaks volumes and they will want to lift themselves from the doldrums that they are presently stranded in. The lack of a Stamford Bridge crowd could well be a deciding factor in this clash of premier titans.

Spurs host Burnley in this 2 o’clock kick off and reading from the match odds should be a walk in the park for them. But away goals can never be discounted at Tottenham home games and their form this season has seen them concede to all the teams below Burnley in the league except West Brom. All this being said however these two sides have met on ne fewer than 11 times since 2014 and Burnley have never won at the Tottenham ground.

If we take the Exchange odds of this treble as the most accurate it amounts to a 10% implied probability and with 9 possible outcomes of this treble, having the correct 3 fall into line considering who is playing seems a bit of a tall order. This may well be another treble that Ladbrokes win

Bettornot eh?

Chelsea, Athletic Bilbao and Gent all to Win

Ladbrokes must be nervous about sticking another no hoper treble up so have gone for 2 odds on matches and an even money away game, so they are just making it look more punter friendly. Price offered by Ladbrokes is 3.75 from 3.5 If you create this treble on Smarkets you will get 4.0 but there is 2% commision to pay if it wins. Just a quick note – If you create this treble with Ladbrokes you will get 3.70 so where they get 3.5 from is anyone’s guess, although a boost from 3.7 to 3.75 is a bit pathetic to look at on the screen.
Anyway to business, Chelsea host Newcastle and victory tonight would displace out of form Liverpool, who incidentally have only gained one point more than Newcastle from the last 8 games. Chelsea have comfortably beaten all the teams at the lower end of the premiership with the exception of West Brom. It is hard to oppose Chelsea tonight but then it was harder to oppose Man Utd yesterday!
Athletic Bilbao are away to Cadiz and would presume that this is the match Ladbrokes are relying on to snatch your cash. Bilbao are 11th in the league, Cadiz 15th. Bilbao, when playing away this season have scored just 6 points from the 10 games planting them firmly in the bottom spot of the “Away” table. Cadiz, in fairness, don’t fair much better when at home by earning just 10 points from 11 home games. Lost games and draws seem to plague Bilbao when playing bottom third league sides and I will be surprised should they pull a victoy out of this hat tonight.
Gent! What a beautiful city. I used to play Rugby in “Ghent” every Sunday when I was serving in Dusseldorf in the late 80s’. Their football seems to be a bit mediocre at the moment however. Hosting 16th place Mouscron should be a matter of course and odds of 1.44 for a home win do amplify this, but recent form would contradict this as Mouscron are slightly ahead in terms of points earned from the last 8 games.
Gent have two Draws against the 15th and 14th placed sides and a 1-2 loss when they hosted 13th Place Kortrijk (If anyone knows how to pronounce that good for you) The odds are too short for the recent form and instead of putting money on this treble I will probably Lay Gent on the exchange for half the risk.
Good luck with any bets you choose to make but these odds are too short for my taste

Abraham 2+ shots on target & Hudson-Odoi 1+ shot on target

Todays dissection comes from the Barnsley v Chelsea F.A.Cup tie being played tonight. Sky bet has boosted this bet from 3.5 (5/2) to 6.0 (5/1) (Well it is called the “Double Up Boost”).
The helpful people at Skybet added this to the bet description

  • Abraham has performed well in the FA Cup this season, scoring a hat-trick in the last round against Luton
  • Hudson-Odoi’s form has improved under Tuchel and he’ll continue to look to impress here

As ever this is undoubtedly true but I will dig a little deeper and see what turns up 🙂
Firstly, lets have a peek into Mr Abraham.
William Hill did a similar Boost involving just Abraham in the Wolves Game on Jan 27 for which I did a blog on (click the link below and it will open in a new window)
Tammy Abraham to have OVER 2 shots on target
He played for 13 minutes in that game!! and I will revise my opinion on what the odds should have been boosted to – to 100/1 🙂
Chelsea have played 3 games since then winning all 3. In the first game v Burnley He played for 45 minutes having just one touch in the box – no blocked shots, no shots on target – not even a shot at all!!? In the Tottenham game however, it was completely different – He didn’t play at all!!
Another no show v Sheffield begs the question, Does he still play for Chelsea? 🙂

Callum Hudson-Odoi’s F.A. Cup career this season is 1 appearance and 1 substitution appearance totaling 100 minutes on the pitch and having an average 0.9 shots on target per 90 mins. With no shots on target in the last round of the F.A. Cup v Luton and only 20 minutes on the pitch ironically it was Tammy Abraham that had 3 shots on target finding the back of the net with all of them! Morecambe was Chelsea’s 4th round tie and with a total of 80 minutes played, Hudson-Odoi scored in the 49th minute with his only shot on target. In the 3 matches mentioned above, the Burnley game saw him playing for 73 minutes and 1 shot on target. His spell of 65 minutes against Tottenham yielded zero shots on target from 3 shots at goal and, with only 28 minutes left of the Sheffield game came on from the bench to have absolutely no bearing on the match at all!
It does seem that these two guys spend more time off the pitch than on it and apart from a brief flare of eye-popping awesome play, thats all they have.
This bet would make a good twilight zone story 🙂

Mohamed Salah, Raheem Sterling & Mason Mount each to have 1 or more shots on target

This one looks interesting from Paddy Power, they have boosted this bet from 4.0 (3/1) to 6.0 (5/1). As is usual with Paddy Power they have not given any pointers as to past performances with all players playing for different teams in two seperate games.

Mo Salah is currently the leading premiership goal scorer and averages 3.7 shots at goal converting that into 1.7 shots on target. Liverpool play Man City at Anfield on Sunday and should prove to be an exciting match as they will both be looking to advance their respective positions in the league. A disappointing performance by Liverpool against Brighton will galvanise the team effort. That said however Salah did have 4 attempts at goal in that match having 2 of them blocked but unfortunately none were on target. His performance against the reverse fixture at Etihad Stadium did see him have 2 attempts at goal with one being on target. This bet has ensured that we cannot wait to see the team sheets so will Salah start this game as Liverpool take on Leicester City next Saturday? I suspect that he will as it is an opportunity not to be missed as Man City play Swansea City in the F.A. Cup in 3 days and as such will Pep Guardiola rest some of his players in preparation.

Mason Mount is Chelsea’s attacking Midfielder with an average shots on target figure of 0.6. Having scored only twice this season in the premiership and having 19 1st team appearances his ability to fulfil his part of the bet seems dubious. Chelsea play Sheffield Utd Away late Sunday night and their last meeting at Stamford Bridge saw Chelsea put 4 goals past the Sheffield keeper but none were scored by Mount but he did manage a shot on target and 2 blocked shots. Chelsea also have an F.A. Cup clash next week against Barnsley. His performance against Tottenham 3 days ago was better than most with 3 shots at goal getting one on target. Going back further to the 2-0 win over Burnley, he still seemed to struggle to get on target after 4 attempts. I think that this choice of player by P.P. is the one that they hope to fail his performances against sides that are defensively weaker than Chelsea can be lack-lustre at best.

Last but by no means least is Raheem Sterling who’s’ average shots on goal are 2.4 with 1.1 shots on target match average. In the match at the Etihad Stadium he didnt score for City as Salah scored for Liverpool but he did manage a shot on target. His ability to score goals is beyond doubt as he has 7 to his credit this premiership season. A bit of a brutal schedule this week for Man City may see some substitutions in the City ranks so again perhaps a clever selection by Paddy Power.

Paddy power have no doubt put this bet up early to entice the Saturday Morning punters to perhaps punt a small stake before any team sheets are posted. Will probably risk a quid to win 5 but no more 🙂

Tammy Abraham to have OVER 2 shots on target

Tonight Chelsea take on Wolves without Lampard at the helm. How will they fair? they are odds on to win with all the bookmakers. William Hill have offered boosted odds of 6.0 (5/1) instead of 5.0 (4/1) that Tammy Abraham will get 3 or more shots on target. At their last meeting at Molineux on 15 Dec 2020 Abraham was on the Bench and played for just 19 minutes not even managing a shot at goal let alone one on target!

Since then he has played in the 1st XI against
West Ham getting 2 shots on target (scoring both times)
Arsenal scoring their only goal with his one shot on target
Leicester not having any shots on target
In the Fulham game he played for 25 minutes coming off the bench to yet again only have 1 shot on target.
He has only, out of 20 games, made 9 1st XI appearances having only a 1.3 shots on target average per match this season.
I would want odds of at least 20/1 before I put money on this bet but as ever will wait until the team is announced.