The boys are back to cast their weathered eyes over QPR’s trip to Forest and the rest of the weekend sporting markets
A tiny win for Andy last week boosts his profit to £16.50 for the season, a typing error saw Brian bet on the Flintstone’s home town of Bedrock, rather than Berwick, last weekend but through our own embarrassment at failing to sub the copy correctly we’ll forgive him that. Berwick lost anyway, as did Chelsea, to let down his accumulator in a blank week that reduces his overall profit for the season to £16.36 – so just 14p between our pundits as it stands.
Forest away always sends a shiver down my spine from the 5-2 cup defeat when Cloughie joined the Rangers firm to clump a couple of Forest fans on the pitch through to our last game in the Premier League when, in fancy dress, I entered the ground drinking enough beer to knock out an elephant. Plus we can't win there. I am going for a draw and will go for Mackie to score first.
‘Let's get ready to rumble’ will, to some of you, mean it's the start of the big fight, for others it marks Ant and Dec’s finest hour as pop stars. Well this week there is something for both sides as Haye v Harrison takes place and the Geordie duo return with I'm a Celebrity… Last year’s series caused a storm when it was reported that Gazza would be going into the jungle for four weeks trying to avoid creepy crawlies. This year he looks as if he could in the clink avoiding creepy crawlies in the shower block. His ex missus Cheryl heads in and at 4/1 to be booted out first is my first tip.
Haye and Harrison on Saturday could be a non event. A Force has a puncher’s chance but the Hayemaker should have too much speed and skill and I fancy a early ko.
The Paddy Power Gold Cup at Cheltenham means the National Hunt season is back. Paul Nicholls has the top weight with Poquelin and is an each way shout at 16/1.
Good luck
For the Weekend:
£7.50 Jamie Mackie
£7.50 Correct score Forest 1 QPR 1
£5 Cheryl Gasgoine to be the first voted off in I'm a celebrity 4/1
£5 ew Poquelin Paddy Power 16/1
£5 on haye to wi Rd 2 9/1
£5 on haye to wi Rd 3 9/1
£2 trebles and 4 fold
Huddersfield 11/8
Port Vale 11/8
Coventry 7/5
Brighton evs
Well, trying something different worked to a degree last week – I won both my bookings bets easily, with a sending off a piece in Arsenal v Newcastle and Stoke v Sunderland game, yielding £14 profit on £10 stakes. Throw in another winner with Smith scoring the third against Reading means that I’ve pretty much broken even for the week. In fact, I think I’m about £2.50 up for the week. Which is nearly a pint.
So onto Nottingham Forest, who are the only side other than us to not lose at home this season, who haven’t lost at home in 300 games, and 200 of those non-defeats appear to be against us, and our 17th consecutive “toughest test of the season…”
I’m going to break away from my traditional win to nil, and I’m plumping for a draw, available at 12/5 from SkyBet. Although Forest are listed as clear favourites for this match, in terms of correct scorecast, the favourite scoreline is 1-1, available at 6/1 on William Hill. I’ll have a further fiver on that.
I’ve just discovered, a little late to the game admittedly, that Stan James have a promotion where if any game finished 0-0, they will refund any bets on goal scorer markets. So, with one eye on this being a low scoring game, I’m going to go with Taarabt to score first with Stan James, available at 8/1.
The other major sporting event this weekend is Haye vs. Harrison in the boxing. Haye is 9/1 on with some bookmakers for the win, and is a massive favourite over Harrison, who is 11/2 for the win. I fully expect David Haye to win, and win in the first half of the fight, but you’ll be lucky to get evens for a 1-6 round spread. So I’m going to narrow it slightly to rounds 4-6, available at 3/1 across the board. If you feel that the fight will last a little longer, you can get 4/1 for David Haye to win anytime during rounds 7-12.
Finally, it’s accumulator time, and I’m going to mix it up a bit – I’ve been having quite a bit of luck recently on betting on over or under goals accumulators, with the threshold being 2.5 goals. The odds are never released until the day of the matches, but they almost always hover around the evens mark, and never below 1.5 or 6/4 on. Which means that a 3 fold accumulator is generally worth around 8/1, and a 4 fold is worth 16/1.
So I’m going to go for Leeds v Bristol City; Scunthorpe v Cardiff and West Ham v Blackpool to all be over 2.5 goals (i.e at least three goals scored in the match…) of course one of the beauties of this sort of accumulator is that once it’s won, it’s won – no last minute goals to ruin it – in fact, it’s entirely possible to be home and hosed before lunchtime.
For the Weekend:
Notts Forest vs QPR - Draw - £10 @ 12/5 (SkyBet)
Notts Forest vs QPR - 1-1 Draw - £5 @ 6/1 (William Hill)
Taarabt to score first - £5 @ 8/1 (Stan James)
Haye to beat Harrison between rounds 4-6 £10 @ 3/1
3 fold accumulator - Leeds vs Bristol City; Scunthorpe vs Cardiff and West Ham vs Blackpool to all be over 2.5 goals - £10 @ odds to be confirmed (Betfair)