Weekend Premiership Football Tips 16th to 18th January 2010

The weekend is fast approaching yet again and hopefully the UK’s big freeze will not affect the fixtures too badly as in the past couple of weeks where there have been lots of postponed matches. Tipping football bets this season is proving difficult with the top teams like Liverpool and Man Utd showing uncharacteristic signs of fragility in the Premiership. This looks like handing Chelsea a golden opportunity to dominate, yet they too had a draw when a win was expected recently against Birmingham and West Ham. Football betting is supposed to be more straight forward than this!

Using the odds from bwin.com here are this weeks football tips for the Premiership.

Portsmouth 2.50 Draw 3.20 Birmingham City 2.70

The turmoil continues at Portsmouth and David James is apparently close to a shock move to Stoke City. Every player is for sale as the club buckles with the burden of their debts and things could not be worse off the pitch it seems. They are heading for relegation at the bottom of the league and lost their last game to Arsenal 4-1. Losing a top goalkeeper could be the final nail in their coffin. Birmingham are doing much better. They beat Portsmouth 1-0 in the fixture earlier in the season, are eighth place in the league and are unbeaten in nine games. I strongly favour the away win here at tasty odds of 2.70. Poor Portsmouth fans, it will not be fun to have to watch their club implode like this, as a Newcastle Utd fan I know what that feels like.

Everton 3.00 Draw 3.30 Man City 2.25

The Mancini effect is still having a positive effect on Man City. It has been confirmed today that Lucas Neill has signed for Turkish champions Galatasaray and will leave Everton after this match. Everton have drawn five out of their last six games and secured a win over Burnley in the sixth game. They drew with Arsenal in their last outing away and were unlucky not to win. Thirteen goals in four games and four straight victories see Man City coming to Everton with momentum and plenty of belief. I fancy them to win this match and at odds against of 2.25 this is the tip for me. This match has a 6.30pm kick off time on Saturday evening.

Bolton 6.25 Draw 3.60 Arsenal 1.55

Third in the league and with a game in hand over Man Utd life is good at the Emirates with five wins in their last seven games and two draws. Sol Campbell has been signed as defensive cover and may make his debut in this match to be played on Sunday. Bolton are eighteenth in the league and new manager Owen Coyle has had little time to make his mark as manager. This match may come too soon for him. I think the sensible bet is to take Arsenal as your banker for the otherwise speculative treble. 1.55 is good odds for a team challenging for the title against a relegation candidate. Danny Shittu is apparently close to signing for Newcastle Utd further weakening their squad.

The three teams I have tipped this week form my recommended bet. If we lose this bet we are -£3 for the season so you might want to have a £2.50 Trixie instead of the usual treble bet. The treble returns a total of £94.16 if it is successful or the £2.50 Trixie (four bets of £2.50, the three doubles and one treble) returns £57.91. The only reason I would consider the Trixie is because the teams are odds against and playing away so risk of one losing is higher.

Enjoy the action and your football betting for this weekends Premiership football matches.

By Malcolm Clarke