Expert Premier League Predictions and free football tips from Kevin Pullein

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Under 3.5 Asian total cards in Leicester v Leeds
1pt 1.85 bet365

Bet on a low number of cards in Sunday's Premier League game between Leicester and Leeds. With bet365 back under 3.5 Asian total cards at decimal odds of 1.85 – equivalent to fractional odds of 17-20. Each yellow will count as one card and each red as two cards.

The starting point for any consideration of how many cards there are likely to be should be what sort of match it is likely to be. The more closely fought the contest the higher the card count tends to be.

Result-related odds for the King Power seem reasonable and they imply something in the region of a 53 per cent chance of a home win, a 24 per cent chance of a draw and a 23 per cent chance of an away win.

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In a typical Premier League game with those result expectations fair decimal odds about under 3.5 Asian total cards would be shorter than 1.85.

Leicester’s games this season have featured slightly more cards than other Premier League games. Last season it was the other way round. Leeds’s games this season have featured slightly fewer cards than other Premier League games. Last season and the season before, though, their Championship games tended to be card-heavy.

For most teams these sorts of stats fluctuate, and where they will head next it is impossible to say.

Referee Chris Kavanagh is one of the good younger Premier League officials. Tomorrow he will take charge of his 79th top-flight game spread over five seasons. So far he has not shown more cards than most Premier League arbiters – for the last two-and-a-half seasons, slightly fewer.

This could also change, and in any direction. His card counts could go up, down or stay about the same, and we will not know until they do.

A bet on under 3.5 Asian total cards will win if there are fewer than four yellows and no reds, or if there is one red and fewer than two yellows. Anything else and it loses. Are decimal odds of 1.85 way too big? Certainly not. Are they a bit too big? Possibly.

Thought for the week

After Chelsea lost at Leicester last Tuesday there were reports that manager Frank Lampard’s job was safe for the time being although results would have to improve. On Sunday Chelsea won 3-1 – only against Championship opponents in the FA Cup, but still it would have to count as a good result. On Monday Lampard was sacked.

So much of the information we receive turns out to be wrong.

Let us give everyone involved the benefit of any doubt. We would want others to do the same for us. Let us assume that the writers were told by someone who should have known and did know – only for owner Roman Abramovich and/or his board to have a change of mind later on. This still means that the assurances about Lampard proved worthless in a matter of days.

Football journalism is like other sports journalism – indeed any kind of journalism. Even information given and passed on in good faith can turn out to be wrong. If you are clearing out a cupboard and find an old newspaper, read it – you will probably smile at how many of the supposed facts and how many of the conclusions drawn from them were confounded shortly afterwards.

There are a lot of people out there who want to mislead us. Even when somebody is not trying to mislead us, though, they can still mislead us.

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