Wolves v Brentford tips: Premier League preview and best bets
The early kick-off in the Premier League sees Wolves take on Brentford and Tom Carnduff has two best bets to back.
Football betting tips: Premier League
2pts Pontus Jansson to have 2+ tackles at 6/4 (Sky Bet)
1pt Max Kilman to have 4+ tackles at 11/2 (Sky Bet)
Saturday's early kick-off in the Premier League features a Wolves team who - based on expected goals (xG) - should be sitting third in the Premier League table currently. They finally ended their wait for victory with a win at Watford and they will be hopeful of building on it as they welcome Brentford.
The Bees lost their first league game of the campaign with Brighton scoring a last minute winner in GW4 and they face a battle to get something against an impressive Wolves side.
The bookmakers make the hosts the favourites, priced at a shade of odds-on, while Brentford can be found as big as 4/1 with a couple of firms. Value based on Wolves' wasteful nature or one to avoid given that they finally ended that wait for victory last time out? You'd be leaning towards the latter in this contest.
A favourite market during the opening exchanges of the season has been tackles and the good news here is that we have the two sides who lead the way in this area coming up against one another. Wolves top the tackles average with 21.0 per game while Brentford sit second with 20.3. That should, hopefully, mean that we see plenty in this game.
That again creates value in the tackles market and two prices immediately jump out. The first of which is the shorter 6/4 on PONTUS JANSSON TO HAVE 2+ TACKLES - that is something he has achieved in two of his last three outings.
The price isn't too much of a surprise when we consider his low averages during his two seasons with Brentford in the Sky Bet Championship but the Premier League is a different test - one in which they won't always be on the front foot and will have to be aggressive in their pursuit of possession.
The Bees have averaged 44.3% possession so far which is significantly lower than the 54.2% they enjoyed when promoted from England's second tier last season. That could explain why Jansson's tackle count has jumped up from the smaller figures we have seen in his two prior campaigns in West London - Brentford averaged 56.0% possession in 2019/20.
Perhaps it's a theme that comes with Jansson and 'lower' possession teams. Leeds failed to break 51% possession during 2016/17 or 2017/18 and Jansson saw his average tackles per game standing at 1.6 and then 1.2. It seems as though they are pricing him up based on previous seasons where he wasn't required to commit as much.
On the Wolves side of things, I'm willing to take the gamble on MAX KILMAN TO HAVE 4+ TACKLES at a decent 11/2. I'd be expecting that price if he hadn't come close to that figure but that's simply not the case.
Kilman has seen three of more tackles - priced at 9/4 in this one - in three of his four Premier League appearances so far. He hit a huge tally of six when facing Tottenham and he's had at least one successful tackle in every outing so far - that includes the comfortable Carabao Cup win against Nottingham Forest where the defence had very little to do.
There is the element of the value play in this one because I can't imagine these prices will be around for long if he enjoys a consistent run of high tackles throughout the early parts of the season. Another game posting three or four should see Kilman's prices crash at some stage - something more aligned to the 5/4 we see for Marcal to have 4+ tackles or the same price on Ruben Neves to have 3+.
It's a surprise to see a price this big when we consider that - despite it being a fairly small sample size - he averaged above 1.0 tackles per game in both 2019/20 and 2020/21. In a new system - with Wolves seeing a higher average number of tackles than they did under Nuno Espirito Santo - Kilman is playing his part.
I'd be leaning more towards the home side when it comes to the outright result but it's a game to avoid in the accumulators - partly because it is the early kick-off too - but the real value can be found in backing JANSSON and KILMAN in the tackles market.
Wolves v Brentford best bets and score prediction
- 2pts Pontus Jansson to have 2+ tackles at 6/4 (Sky Bet)
- 1pt Max Kilman to have 4+ tackles at 11/2 (Sky Bet)
Score prediction: Wolves 1-0 Brentford (Sky Bet odds: 9/2)
Odds correct at 1145 BST (16/09/21)
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