Crawley corner count may be higher than bookies predict

Newport have taken an unusually large share of the corners in their games this season. Crawley have taken an unusually small share of the corners in their games in the nearly four months since Gabriele Cioffi became manager.

The teams meet in League Two and all the omens point to Newport taking a lot more corners than Crawley. Omens can be misleading, however, and these ones might be. There could be value for money in betting the other way.

Back Crawley +3 Asian handicap corners at decimal odds of 1.975 – equivalent to fractional odds of 39-40. If Newport win the corners count by more than three the bet will fail, if they win it by three stakes will be refunded, and if anything else happens the bet will succeed.

Newport have taken 72 per cent of the corners in their League Two home games this season. That is a lot. In each of the previous four seasons they took more corners than other teams with similar numbers of goals for and against, and the surplus was greater at home than away, but there was no hint in any of those four seasons of what has happened this season.

• Sky Bet League Two standings

It could continue – and if it continues here the bet will lose – but more likely than not it will not continue.

Crawley have taken only 36 per cent of the corners in their League Two away games while Cioffi has been manager. That is not a lot. Low corner shares could become an enduring feature of his team’s play. Such things do happen. But it is too early to tell, and more likely than not in the weeks and months ahead Crawley will become responsible for a larger share of the corners in their games.

If they start on Saturday the bet could win.

The result-related markets for Rodney Parade seem right. They imply something like a 63 per cent chance of Newport scoring each goal that is scored.

Over the past two decades in Football League games with similar goals expectations the hosts took 58 per cent of all corners and in any randomly chosen one of those encounters fair decimal odds about the visitors +3 Asian handicap corners would have been 1.55.

At Rodney Parade the odds should be bigger. Newport have performed abnormally well in corner handicap markets for a long time, even if not always quite so abnormally well as they have this season. And there is a question mark over what we should anticipate from Crawley in corners handicap markets.

Even so, it is still possible that the chance of Crawley beating a +3 Asian handicap corners line may be better than 365 imagine.

Recommendation
Crawley +3 Asian handicap corners
1pt 1.975 bet365

Thought for the day

Manchester United took a risk in appointing Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as caretaker manager until the end of the season. The risk is that he might get good results.

He started with a 5-1 win over Cardiff and followed up with a 3-1 defeat of Huddersfield. If he carries on getting good results United will come under pressure to give him the job permanently. And they might not feel able to resist that pressure, even if as it builds they already have somebody else in mind for the job.

United have the highest payroll in the Premier League. The team should be better than they played in the first half of this season for Jose Mourinho, who was sacked the week before Christmas.

United are sixth, eight points below the Champions League places. Suppose that by the end of the season United are closer to the top four – or perhaps even among them. People will say Solskjaer deserves to be given the job full time. What if United win the FA Cup? We will not mention the Champions League.

Solskjaer is popular with United fans. He was in the past a great United player, and he has always come across as a good person. He might even be someone who could become a great United manager.

At the moment, though, nobody knows. And if United have a good second half to the season nobody should think they have a much better idea. United should have a good second half to the season, whoever is the manager and regardless of whether their contract is temporary or longer term.

Any team can have a run of good results, and a team of highly paid players should have them more frequently than most. Many times a caretaker manager has presided over some encouraging scores then been given the job permanently only for the club to decide shortly afterwards that they have made yet another mistake.

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