Football betting this weekend

As we approach the Christmas football fixtures then football betting activity will be likely to increase over the holiday period. It is usually this time of year where the teams are basically set on who will be challenging for what and who will be fighting relegation. This weekend and next week sees some crucial matches coming up for an awful lot of teams.

Michael Owen will have done his chances of a World Cup place no harm at all last night with his great hat-trick in the Champions League against Wolfsburg, a 3-1 win that sent the German champions into the Europa League. After getting within two points of leaders Chelsea last week, they will be looking to kick on from that although Saturday’s game against Aston Villa at Old Trafford will be very tough.

Manchester United can be backed at odds of 1.42 with Villa currently at 7.00 with the draw at 4.25. Personally I think that the Premier League is very competitive this season and that seems to be highlighted by the fact that both United and Chelsea have now lost three league games each before Christmas.

Chelsea didn’t perform well at home to Apoel in the Champions League and drew 2-2 and were rather sloppy in the process. This came on the back of their 2-1 defeat at Manchester City and their penalty shoot-out defeat in the Carling Cup. I think that only the league defeat will really bother Ancelotti but not winning can become a problem in its own right.

Chelsea host Everton who are going through their own problems and a team who were tipped by many to be challenging for Europe are currently in 15th place in the table. Chelsea can be backed at 1.25 with Everton at 12.00 but I do expect Chelsea to bounce back this weekend.

Are Portsmouth as bad as their league position suggests? Well there are six other teams at this moment in time who have a worse goal difference than Portsmouth so one could argue that Paul Hart may have been a little unlucky to lose his job. Their win last weekend was massive and you really do not want to be getting 7-8 points adrift when the confidence levels are low.

The gap is back to four points now and they have what could be a winnable game away to Sunderland. Avram Grant is a top coach but now we are going to see how he handles a team in a relegation dogfight and if he pulls it off then I reckon that his stock will rise a couple of points. Sunderland are tough at home though these days and are priced at odds of 1.75 with Portsmouth at 4.60.

I think had this game been played a couple of weeks ago before the Burnley victory and Grant becoming manager then Portsmouth may have been at around 6.00 and not 4.60. So there are going to be some intriguing games this weekend but do keep a look out for my other article on this weekends matches.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
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