Saturday Price Boost

Crystal Palace, Cardiff and Norwich all to Win

Ladbrokes have boosted this treble from 10.0 (9/1) to 11.0 (10/1). Norwich are the only odds on favourite of the trio and I will start with them.
Norwich will be looking to reclaim their top spot in the championship with a win against 9th placed Stoke City. Norwich, at home, have won 2 (Bristol City 2-0 Barnsley 1-0) and drawn 2 (Middlesbrough 0-0, QPR 1-1) while skoke have a 100% draw rate in their last 4 away games suggesting a worrying pattern perhaps for Norwich City. Their defeat at the hands of Swansea last week may just have knocked their confidence a trifle. Norwich however are not without ability and have managed 12 points from 8 games while Stoke have only topped up their points total by only 6 in the same number of games. Away defeats for Stoke when playing top of the league sides do seem to have a trend with the exception of reading which they won 0-3 Norwich have some good wins under their belt when playing mid table sides winning to nil against Bristol City, Cardiff City and Barnsley. I would think that on previous form Norwich should win this but not until the last quarter of the game where they seem to score most of their goals.

Cardiff City are hosting Penalty Plagued Coventry City today and should be an interesting game. With home odds of 2.1 Ladbrokes are being the most generous bookie with most others offering 2.0 – 2.05. This does actually look a promising leg of the treble as Coventry City do seem to be prone to conceding goals through penalties with no less than 7 being awarded against the Sky Blues since September, suggesting a defensive weakness that Cardiff may take advantage of, turning the tables on their 1-0 defeat last November when these two teams last met. It does look like a win for Cardiff would put them nearer safety and into the top half of the Championship League. Coventry are far from safe, and desperation causes mistakes which they have proved they make!

As with all trebles the bookies need a matches where they can quite honestly say that all selections are favourites but one which is perhaps not equally favourite as it two cohorts. In this treble this place of honour goes to Crystal Palace who host Burnley. Ladbrokes are offering 2.60 (0.15 more than William Hill as I mentioned in my previous post https://bet-or-not.com/2021/02/13/rangers-crystal-palace-and-watford-all-to-win/ ) on a home win against 3.0 for the away win implying low confidence. Crystal Palace have conceded more goals this season than Burnley by a 10 goal margin however they do have an average of above 1 (1.6) goals scored per match. Neither team are confident “goal getters” and this has all the hallmarks of a low scoring contest. Burnley will want at least 1 point from this game if not all three and need them to keep their heads above the relegation zone. Crystal Palace have a 27% scoreline of 1-1 when at home while a further 27% of scorelines have resulted in losses. Burnley’s away however, record 45% win or draw scorelines (3 x 0-0 and 2 x 0-1)
This game may well be won or lost in the last 15 minutes as Palace have conceded 6 goals in minutes 76-90 this season when playing at home.

This treble is as always a risk as it has been boosted by the bookie (always suspect!!)
As Ladbrokes have imposed a maximum stake of £0.00 on my account I will not be taking the risk myself (Yes that’s right A BIG FAT ZERO! they live in fear of me 🙂 )

The best of Luck with whatever you decide 🙂

Rangers, Crystal Palace and Watford all to win

First up Today is William Hills Super Odds – Saturday 3pm Treble
Max stake on this is a fiver and this on its own suggests to the unsuspecting punter that the bookie is frightened that the bet will win. Whereas if you scroll down the page a bit to the enhanced Odds section bigger odds specials exist with no stake restrictions!!
Enough bookie psychology, down to facts
Rangers are flying high at the top of the Scottish Premiership and host 10th place (out of 12) Kilmarnock. The goalscoring ability of rangers at present are with out precedence, managing an average strike rate of 3 goals per match when playing at home, Kilmarnock do struggle a little as they have only managed to score 9 goals away this season. Odds for a rangers win today are 1.15 with Hills. That is quite a carrot on the end of the stick. I will skip Crystal Palace for a minute and look towards the other short priced selection.
Watford are also at home today to Bristol City, will want to collect some points today after a three match streak of only picking up 2 points with goalless draws against Coventry City and Millwall and perhaps an inexcusable defeat at the hands of QPR. 3 points today will keep them level with Reading (who are likely to beat Millwall today) in that all important promotion play-off zone. Watford’s home record while playing mid table teams such as Bristol are Mostly wins with two notable losses One against QPR as I mentioned above and the other against Cardiff City in one of the few matches where Watford failed to score at all. Bristol City on the other hand undoubtedly struggle against teams from the top of the table when away losing to Brentford (3-2), Norwich (2-0), Reading (3-1) and Bournemouth (1-0).
Watford’s defensive posture is second only to Swansea having conceded only 20 goals from 28 games played (Swansea have only conceded 15!). While their offensive record is similar to Bristols, having scored 31 goals to Bristols 29 from the same number (28) of games. Watford seem to be quick goal merchants catching their opponents off guard at the beginning of halves as they, when playing at home, scored 6 in minutes 0-15 and 7 in minutes 46-60. Bristol do have a bigger proportion of conceded goals when away in minutes 0-15 so a big possibility of a morale destroying goal by Watford would Indubitably help their cause.
As with all trebles the bookies need a matches where they can quite honestly say that all selections are favourites but one which is perhaps not equally favourite as it two cohorts. In this treble this place of honour goes to Crystal Palace who host Burnley. Hill are offering 2.45 on a home win against 3.1 for the away win implying low confidence. Crystal Palace have conceded more goals this season than Burnley by a 10 goal margin however they do have an average of above 1 (1.6) goals scored per match. Neither team are confident “goal getters” and this has all the hallmarks of a low scoring contest. Burnley will want at least 1 point from this game if not all three and need them to keep their heads above the relegation zone. Crystal Palace have a 27% scoreline of 1-1 when at home while a further 27% of scorelines have resulted in losses. Burnley’s away however, record 45% win or draw scorelines (3 x 0-0 and 2 x 0-1)
This game may well be won or lost in the last 15 minutes as Palace have conceded 6 goals in minutes 76-90 this season when playing at home.

This treble has been boosted from 3/1 (which is very generous as should you put these games into a treble on your betslip you would get 7/2!!) to 5/1

these are the facts and you can make up your own mind
Good Luck with whatever you Decide

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.