The 2019/2020 UEFA Champions and Europa League draws were made last night and, in the Champions, League the four English clubs Manchester City, Liverpool, Spurs and Chelsea have all avoided each other at the group stage. Manchester City are in Group C along with Atlanta, Zagreb and Shakhtar Donetsk and Liverpool landed in group E alongside Napoli, Salzburg and Genk. Spurs are in Group B with Bayern Munich, Olympiacos and Crvena Zvezda and finally Chelsea are in Group H. The action gets underway next month on Tuesday 17th.
Looking ahead to the weekend football action and there’s a full quota of Premier League, EFL Championship and EFL League One and Two action. There are four live televised matches today and tomorrow starting tonight with a live EFL Championship game tonight between Cardiff City and Fulham at the Cardiff City stadium. Both teams will aim to bounce back to winning ways after failing to win their last two matches and Cardiff will aim to make it three league home wins in a row. The bluebirds have experienced mixed fortunes against Fulham at home winning three of the last eight competitive encounters, Fulham won three and there were two stalemates since 1998.
Goals have featured in most of these games including the last four and this looks like the safest betting strategy with both teams to score or over 2.5 goals likely to land. On Saturday the traditional lunchtime Premier League match is between Southampton and Manchester United at St Mary’s and there will be huge pressure on United’s Solskjaer and his young squad to deliver a convincing win after disappointing results in their last two games. United do have a good record in this corresponding fixture winning nine of the last fourteen, but in recent seasons they have struggled winning one 1-0 and drawing twice. From a betting perspective it looks like a good time to oppose United again, either by siding with Southampton on the handicap with a goal start, laying United on the exchanges or both teams to score.
There’s also a live lunchtime kick-off in the EFL Championship between Bristol City and Middlesbrough at Ashton Gate and Bristol City will aim to continue their good record in this corresponding fixture having won eight and drawn two of the last fourteen. The other live game on Saturday is the traditional tea-time Premier League game and this one is between Burnley and Liverpool at Turf Moor. Liverpool won four of the last five corresponding Premier League encounters including the last two and while Burnley will no doubt give the title challengers a good run for their money, especially with striker Ashley Barnes on fire, I don’t see them repeating their 2-0 league win back in 2016.
From the 3pm kick-off’s Leicester And Watford should pick up wins against Bournemouth and Watford respectively in the Premier League and there should be goals in the West Ham and Norwich game. In the Championship the game of the day between title challengers Leeds and Swansea should be a cracker and goals look likely with both teams firing in front of goal so far this season. Promotion challengers Nottingham Forest and Preston clash at the City Ground which should be an entertaining affair that should feature goals and Luton look over-priced to win at home against winless and in crisis Huddersfield.
Finally, in League One high flying Sunderland and Blackpool will aim to continue their impressive starts to the season against Peterborough and Portsmouth at the Stadium of Light and Bloomfield Road respectively. I expect there will be goals with all four teams possessing decent attacking talent and scoring plenty of goals in the majority of all their games so far this season.
There ARE football tips today.
