Our pundits have the end in sight, and have money in the bank, as they look ahead to the weekend action at Preston and elsewhere across the sporting calendar.
Andy collected £34 for backing a draw, and £38.50 for a correct score offsetting losses of £25 on other bets to give him a profit for the week of £47.50 and a profit for the season of £122.89. Brian got a £10 refund on his Newbury bet in the saddest of circumstances - two horses were killed by an electrical fault in the parade ring and the meeting was abandoned after the first race. He lost £40 elsewhere leaving his profit at £460.63 for the season.
Well another good week for me on the back of QPR’s 1-1 draw with Forest, netting me nice wins on both the draw and correct score markets. Coupled with a result for the over 2.5 goals in the United vs. City game means that I’ve turned another nice profit and well on the way to having a healthy betting bankroll for the rest of the season. Have to admit though, I probably would have sacrificed the win to see QPR beat Forest on Sunday, but thankfully Scunny (5/1 before the match) did us a massive favour on Wednesday by beating Forest.
In an almost seamless segue, 5/1 is also the price I got for Arsenal to beat Barcelona on Wednesday after about 10 minutes in play. Just before Van Persie’s equaliser, Arsenal were 65/1 in play with Betfair to win the game. And somebody, according to the Betfair, managed to get matched at 400/1 for the Arsenal win. Whoever the guy was who laid Arsenal for 400/1 has just lost a minimum of £800, and almost certainly a whole lot more on offering a bet at odds over six times the market price. And assuming that they did ‘only’ lose £800 – what did they stand to win? £2. TWO POUNDS. Crazy.
This Saturday, we’re up at Preston, top vs. bottom. One thing that the Scunny vs. Forest game has told us is that Preston aren’t simply going to shake our collective hands hand us three points in a nice presentation case and wish us on our way. Did somebody say banana skin? Having said that if we have any designs on winning this league this is the sort of match that we should be winning and, based on Preston’s current form and performance against us earlier in the season, winning well. The straight win is available at around 5/6 which doesn’t offer much value at all, so I’ll instead go for the QPR to win to nil, available at 9/4 on Betfair. Instead of going for my usual fiver on Taarabt to score first (11/2 Paddy Power), I’m going to split the money between Faurlin (25/1 across the board) and whichever of Shittu, Gorkks, or Hall starts against Preston, on the assumption that Warnock may ring the defensive changes (all three are at 33/1 across the board, and if two of those start, then they are listed in order of preference...)
Our second game for this week is home against Ipswich, who have been coming into a fairly useful vein of form recently, including what can only be described as a demolition of Doncaster on Tuesday. The odds are not yet available for this fixture, but I would expect a home win to be somewhere around 1.7 or 7/10, and will go for that.
Onto my multiples, and I'm going to go for a rather leggy six fold on the Saturday, with Birmingham, Stoke, Dortmund, Valencia, Real Madrid, and Inter all winning, available at 8.49 on Betfair.
For the midweek fixtures, I'm going to commit another £10 @ 2.50 a leg across the Tuesday and Wednesday fixtures, and go for 3 trebles and a four fold of Spurs, Chelsea, Real Madrid and Man U to win - available at 6's for the trebles and 11's for the 4 fold.
For The Weekend:
Preston vs QPR - QPR win to nil - £15 @ 9/4 (Betfair)
Preston vs QPR - Faurlin to score first - £2.50 @ 25/1 (Various)
Preston vs QPR - Shittu/Gorkks/Hall to score first - £2.50 @ 33/1 (Various)
Sixfold accumulator - Birmingham, Stoke, Dortmund, Valencia, Real Madrid, and Inter to win - £10 @ 17/2 (Betfair)
For Midweek:
QPR vs Ipswich - QPR to win - £10 @ Odds TBA
3 trebles and a fourfold accumulator Spurs, Chelsea, Real Madrid and Man U to win - £10 total across the 4 legs.
Last week’s racing was overshadowed by events at Newbury. A sad day for the connections of both horses.
Due to work commitments this week I am going to keep things simple. We should beat Preston and I fancy us to get a couple goals and will plump for a 2-0 win. On Tuesday Ipswich roll into Town and although they have had an improved set of results since Jewell took over I fancy another win but this time by a 2-1 margin. There have been rumblings about our CB partnership and as Gorkks has formed a part of my selections recently I was tempted to leave him out but I will give him another crack as he is due a goal. The cricket World Cup starts this weekend and after pummelling England in the one day series the Aussies are a decent bet but don't rule out Sri Lanka.
For the Weekend:
£7.50 Preston 0 QPR 2
2 x £2.50 singles Gorkks to score first in both games
£10 Australia to win Cricket world cup 6/1
£4 trebles and a £4 acca
Darlington 5/4
Southampton 11/10
Oxford 9/5
Carlisle 7/4
For Midweek:
£7.50 QPR 2 Ipswich 1
Previously Advised: £2 Lucky 15 and £2e/w acca
QPR to win Championship at 12/1
Huddersfield to win league 1 at 8/1
Rotherham to win League 2 at 12/1
York to win conference at 12/1
£16.50 Ireland to win 6 nations 100/30