BILLY BUNTER

Weblog: The football punter

Shots will be taking aim at Ferdinand

Why always you, Mario? I really can't imagine big fella.

I remember many years ago during my idle youth spending an evening with a mate popping eggs into a microwaveone at a time and betting on the time of each explosion.

But even during those most meaningless of days I can't ever recall popping to the newsagents, buying twenty quid's worth of fireworks and saying to myself ‘now, where should I hang the Catherine wheel? How about just below the shaving mirror.'

At least Loopy Mario made up for it with a decent performance against United on Sunday. On fire twice in one weekend, eh?

That's been another belting weekend of Premier League fun and games and I don't suppose for one minute it will be trumped by this week's Carling Cup action.

Fergie, no matter how fed up he is, will still send out the reserves at Aldershot though the Shots' strikers must be praying that Rio Ferdinand isn't left out.

Any bets to be had are elsewhere. Cardiff, for example, to beat Burnley.

Eddie Howe's having a tough time at Turf Moor trying to impress the no-nonsense natives. The softly-spoken boy manager was parachuted into Lancashire from the balmy south-coast resort town of Bournemouth and I'm afraid that makes him a bit too namby-pamby for many of ‘em.

Defeat in South Wales tonight won't do him any favours but I think Cardiff are a decent bet.

I'm also on Crystal Palace to take down Southampton. Some of the Eagles' lads are more unsung than the Travis back catalogue but they are clearly doing something right and look way overpriced to bring Soton down a peg or two.