Football

After a busy and exciting week of domestic football on the League Cup front the domestic footy action continues this weekend with the traditional Friday night EFL Championship match between two former Premier League clubs Aston Villa and Bolton at Villa Park. Both clubs have struggled for consistency this season and as a result they both currently languish in the bottom half of the table. In terms of the result I see a low scoring win for Villa as two of Villa’s three league home wins this season came against bottom half opposition and they also beat eighth place Swansea last time out in the league at home.

The midday Premier League kick-off is an interesting clash between in-form Bournemouth, who are unbeaten at home in all competitions this season winning seven and drawing twice and an inconsistent Manchester United at Dean Court. Bournemouth are currently two places higher and three points ahead of eighth place United so this is a big game for both teams in terms of staying in touch with the top-five and European places. The two clubs have only met three times in the Premier League at Dean Court and Bournemouth won the first encounter back in 2015 2-1 and United won the last two in 2016 and 2017 1-3 and 0-2.

To highlight United’s inconsistency this season, they won two of their five leagues away games, losing and drawing once, and failed to win their last two against West Ham losing 3-1 and drawing with Chelsea 2-2. It’s a tough result to call as a result and I think there will be goals with the best bet being maybe BTTS & Over 2.5 Goals match double. From the 3pm kick-offs Leicester City confirmed they will play their away tie at Cardiff after the tragic death of their Thai owner and four others last weekend. Second from bottom Newcastle will aim to pick up their first league win of the season against Watford at St James Park, but I don’t see them winning today as I think Watford are much better offensively and should at worse leave with a point.

There are also two Premier League evening kick-offs on Saturday and the traditional tea-time kick-off is the match of the day between Arsenal and Liverpool at the Emirates Stadium and if its anything like their last two corresponding encounters at the Emirates where in for a real treat again as last season it ended 3-3 and the previous season ended 3-4. With all the attacking talent on offer I expect there will be goals again and I think Liverpool are stronger defensively and from a betting perspective BTTS and Liverpool Win Match Double is tempting. The final game of the day is the 19:45 kick-off between Wolves and Spurs at Molineux and if Spurs play at their best I think they will inflict Wolves second home defeat in a row after Watford’s 0-2 win last weekend.

Selections:

None.