Kevin Pullein: free football betting tips & analysis from the Soccer Boffin

Football tips, stats and philosophy from Kevin Pullein.

Best bet

Schalke +4.5 Asian handicap corners
1pt Evs bet365

It is possible that the accumulation of corners in the Bundesliga game between Schalke and Eintracht Frankfurt will not be as one-sided as bet365 anticipate.

Back Schalke +4.5 Asian handicap corners at decimal odds of 2.0, equivalent to the fractional price of evens. If Schalke lose the corners count by five or more the bet will fail, otherwise it will succeed.

This will be the last Bundesliga game at the Veltins-Arena for at least 12 months. Schalke will finish bottom. With two games to play they have a measly 13 points. It is somewhat surprising that their relegation was confirmed only three weeks ago.

Since then Schalke have played twice and each time lost the corners count by six – at Hoffenheim then at home to Hertha.

In both games, though, they scored the first goal. At Hoffenheim they scored the first two goals. They ended up losing both games, but they did not trail at Hoffenheim until the 60th minute or against Hertha until the 73rd minute. In other words, there were long periods when their opponents had to attack because they had to score.

Usually in Schalke’s games it has been the other way round. On average they have lost the corners count by just two. In only 11 games out of 32 have they lost the corners count by five or more.

Schalke have nothing more to play for. Frankfurt have a lot. They are fifth in the table, just one place and one point below the Champions League line. In such games the number of goals likely to be scored by the team who need to win goes up and the number of goals likely to be conceded goes down. There tends to be an even bigger shift in the allocation of corners.

Allowing for this the chance of Schalke beating an Asian handicap corners line of +4.5 becomes smaller, but it may still be larger than the 50 per cent implied by bet365’s decimal odds of 2.0.

Thought for the week

Manchester City are Premier League champions. How do they compare with other champions in terms of how early they won and how many points they needed to win?

These figures cover the 26 Premier League seasons in which teams had 38 games to achieve what they wanted to –1995-96 up to and including 2020-21.

City won the title with three games to spare. They were confirmed as champions on Tuesday when Manchester United lost to Leicester. Last night’s game at Newcastle did not matter in the grand scheme of things.

The average number of games left to play when a team were confirmed as champions was two. In other words, City won slightly earlier than most. Seven teams secured the title on the final day. The earliest celebration was launched last season when Liverpool secured the title with seven games to spare.

City were crowned champions with 80 points. This was slightly fewer than most. The average total when top spot was guaranteed has been 84. The lowest was 71 when Manchester United secured the title in 1996-97. The highest was 98 when City became champions on the final day two seasons ago.

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