Premier League: special markets and PFA Player of the Year betting

As the Premier League reaches it's half-way stage Mark Langdon looks at some special betting markets including top-half finish and PFA Player of the Year betting, and gives his free football tips.

Best bet

Everton top-half finish
1pt 5-4 Sky Bet

Premier League special markets

Six of the top ten Premier League positions should be locked down but there are four top-half spots up for grabs and Everton can get themselves out of a sticky situation by improving over the second part of the season.

The Toffees are clearly better than their league position of 16th suggests and their two performances since Marco Silva departed - a win over Chelsea and a draw at Manchester United - hint that he was probably part of the problem on Merseyside.

Carlo Ancelotti is on the verge of replacing Silva and, despite the silver fox losing some of his suave demeanour in recent times at Bayern Munich and Napoli, the Italian impressed early in both jobs.

A striker would not go amiss in January (Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been linked) and then it will be a case of getting players such as Fabian Delph and Jean-Philippe Gbamin back from injury.

West Ham are also of some interest given the talent in their team, but they have not played Leicester or Liverpool yet and face eight of the current top ten on their travels.

If it is assumed that Liverpool, Leicester, Manchester City, Chelsea, Tottenham and United will take six of the places, what about the others?

Sheffield United rarely change their side and could feel the pinch as the season goes on, while Wolves are a class act, but so classy that they could have a seriously deep Europa League run.

Arsenal will presumably pick up, but it is by no means certain, and Crystal Palace will struggle to sustain their current rate of points given that 15 goals in 17 matches has somehow brought them 23 points.

The PFA Player of the Year market is fascinating, with Sadio Mane favourite ahead of Kevin De Bruyne.

Mane would be a greatly deserving winner but Liverpool could split the vote, opening up the possibility of De Bruyne becoming a contender despite City being unlikely to retain the title.

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