Premier League - Punting Pointers: Betting tips and lessons for matchday three

To say the Premier League is back with a bang is some understatement.

The second round of fixtures saw all 20 teams involved after Manchester United and Manchester City were granted an extra week’s rest following their European exploits, handing Aston Villa and Burnley some additional holiday time too.

What unfolded certainly left the opening weekend, even with its stunning 4-3 clash between Liverpool and Leeds, feeling like little more than a high quality warm-up act.

We need to talk about goals (again)

I won’t waste too much time here as I covered this in Premier League: Talking Points 2 on Sunday.

Monday’s action then ensured it was a record-breaking round of fixtures, with 44 goals scored across 10 games – a goal more than the previous high set in February 2011.

What I urged in the Talking Points was to not all of sudden rush to back the overs, something that I believe bore fruit quickly on Monday night with just one goal in the first game at Villa Park - the four at Molineux came courtesy of perennial top scorers Man City.

A weekend such as this must surely act as a wake-up call for managers and perhaps more so, defenders.

Back in 2011 when 43 goals were netted across a weekend there did appear to be an attempt at correction among Premier League defences the following week as the net was found on just 23 occasions.

That drop-off was actually even more stark. A 3-3 draw skews the average goals hugely – in the nine other fixtures, an average of just 1.9 goals were scored. In an effort to address a freak of a weekend, teams were more cautious the next, with 15 of the Premier League’s 20 teams conceding one goal or fewer.

I realise this may sound wishy-washy given my suggestion of “putting the unders away for a while” earlier this week to then go rushing back to my comfort blanket a couple of days later, but please bear with me. A weekend like we have just had is bound to affect the market, and we should take the opportunity for extra value.

I look through the weekend’s action and a selection of matches jump out for being on an Under 2.5 goals shortlist: Palace v Everton (5/7), Burnley v Southampton (3/4), Sheff Utd v Leeds (4/5), Spurs v Newcastle (11/10), West Ham v Wolves (13/11), Fulham v Aston Villa (4/5).

For clarity, I’m not saying I’d back all of these, I just wouldn’t draw a line through them immediately. Most are hovering around the 4/5 mark, other than the odds-against fixtures in London.

And it's Under 2.5 goals in West Ham v Wolves at 13/11 that astonishes me. A late goal for Raul Jimenez in Monday’s 3-1 defeat by Manchester City meant a rare four-goal game for Nuno’s side, and only the second time there have been over 2.5 in their past 15 fixtures.

Arsenal’s late winner at the weekend hit the Hammers’ own strike-rate too, meaning they’re now little better than a 50/50 shot - six of their past 11 matches have seen under 2.5 goals.

But I still love that price at the London Stadium.

All or Nothing: Not just Tottenham Hotspur

The weekend goal frenzy has led to another hugely noteworthy statistic being overlooked – 18 fixtures and still no draw. That is pretty unbelievable.

Last season 24% of Premier League fixtures ended level, with seven draws across the opening two rounds of fixtures (35%).

Just because we haven’t seen any draws, doesn’t mean there will all of a sudden be some but it isn’t something we should just quickly brush over either. The all or nothing nature of the first couple of weeks means there are still seven teams in the top flight yet to collect a point, something they want to rectify as quickly as possible of course.

At least one more team is guaranteed to get off the mark on matchday three as Southampton head to Burnley.

Neither were prolific drawers in 2019/20, surely a contributory factor in the 12/5 on offer for them to share the spoils. But Burnley have drawn six of their past eight home games, which makes that price look big.

Elsewhere, a game that sticks out is Sheffield United v Leeds.

Prior to their form tailing off in the final nine matches of the season, Chris Wilder’s team had drawn 11 of their opening 29 Premier League matches – by far the most in division. Ever the pragmatist, the Blades boss won’t want to make it a third straight magnanimous defeat to start the new season.

A pair of tight 1-0 away wins when these sides met during a close-run Sky Bet Championship promotion race in 2018/19 is a nice indicator of how this match may well play out. For the draw to be a best price of 41/17 is galling in the extreme.

Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds may have been involved in two 4-3 thrillers so far, but both came within a whisker of finishing level.

The draw has to be the play here.

Penalty, penalty, penalty!

Conscious that I’ve so far given two fairly short-term bits of advice, here’s one for all season.

Last term there were 91 penalties awarded in the Premier League, which is about par over recent years – since 2006/07 there have been between 80 and 106 in each campaign.

There have already been 12 penalties in 18 fixtures, taking us to a mammoth 253 if we extrapolate for the entire season.

I suspect there are a few reasons why, starting with the new directive referees have been given when it comes to the handball rule. We’ve seen multiple spot-kicks given – against Leeds’ Robin Koch and Manchester United’s Victor Lindelof to name a couple – which were pretty harsh to put it mildly.

The newly-promoted clubs have been the worst offenders, although I feel a little harsh lumping Fulham (1) in with West Brom (2) and Leeds (3). While naivety has played its part, the vast majority of penalties have come from players not quite being up to the pace of the game, and that is across the board, not just the three sides that have come up from the Sky Bet Championship.

Roman Saiss’ challenge to upend Kevin De Bruyne and leave Wolves with a mountain to climb against Man City was incredibly similar to the offences committed by defenders from both Leeds and West Brom in their opening matches, as well as world class operator Thiago for Liverpool.

Defensively, it's just not quite there at the moment.

From a betting perspective, in the short-term it’s worth small stakes on designated penalty takers in the anytime goalscorer market, if that player happens to be an inviting pricing because they're not a front-line striker.

Frustratingly, in last week’s Punting Pointers I suggested this angle for Crystal Palace captain Luka Milivojevic at 8/1, but as he's recovering from injury he was on the bench when the Eagles won a spot-kick at Manchester United. The point stands, though.

Chelsea's Jorginho, who surely will be forgiven a first penalty miss in two-and-a-half seasons against Liverpool, at 5/1 against West Brom is a decent option this week, while the penalty angle is just a bonus when it comes to Jack Grealish at 9/2 given the form he showed against Sheffield United ahead of a trip to a Fulham side who’ve conceded seven times already.

One from the boss

In this unprecedented era of fixture congestion and self-isolation there will be the occasional needle of value that we can pluck from the proverbial haystack of matches.

A fortnight ago, Tom Carnduff was kind enough to inform the rest of the Sporting Life team that both St Mirren goalkeepers had tested positive for coronavirus ahead of their game with Hibs, and the Scottish FA had turned down their request for a postponement. While they did secure a keeper on loan, Tom’s tip paid dividends as Hibs easily won at evens.

This latest tip-off, from our managing editor Gareth Jones, isn’t quite so dramatic, specific or last minute, it could very well be just as profitable.

When Manchester City host Leicester on Super Sunday they will have had 24 hours less recovery time having played in the league on Monday and Carabao Cup on Thursday, but that is by the by when it comes to their real issues.

Joao Cancelo, Bernardo Silva, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Sergio Aguero, Aymeric Laporte, Eric Garcia and Ilkay Gundogan are all absent through either injury or positive coronavirus tests.

Just three first-team players were named on their bench for Monday’s win at Wolves, with the rest of the spaces made up by lesser known youngsters. Given City’s reputation for squad depth, that really was jarring.

Leicester are 9/1 to win, 13/5 double chance and 21/20 with a two-goal start.

Brendan Rodgers’ side may have tailed off last season but they still finished fifth, and have won their opening two league matches 3-0 and 4-2. It's surprising to see them as such outsiders.

My advice would be to hang fire on the double chance to see what kind of team City put out on Thursday, and also to see how their injuries clear up over the course of the week.

But Leicester +2 goal handicap at 21/20 is one I’d take right away.

Things to carry over

As the season goes on, I’ll try and keep track of the trends that have been picked out and then paid off.

What stood out last week was the poor set-piece defending of the newly-promoted teams, so backing defenders to score against them looked like a smart play. It proved fruitful with the 12/1 return from Michael Keane for Everton against West Brom.

There’s no reason to drop this angle, especially as Fulham also conceded from another corner.

Kurt Zouma got on the scoresheet for Chelsea at Brighton on the opening weekend and is 12/1 to find the net against the Baggies – Andreas Christensen and Fikayo Tomori are both 15/1, with no market yet available on Thiago Silva or Antonio Rudiger.

Leeds did indeed prove they were the tackle kings again, making 23 against Fulham and rewarding backers at a return of 6/4. I anticipate an element of rope-a-dope from Sheffield United though, so I’d sit that one out this week. It's worth keeping an eye on for the future, however.

Southampton let us down in that same market. Hopefully that was an off week, but three defeats from three in all competitions doesn’t bode well for Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side.

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