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Kevin Pullein predictions: free football betting tips from the Soccer Boffin

Hearts may receive more cards than bet365 expect

Robbie Nelson's Hearts team have often kept their noses clean
Robbie Nelson's Hearts team have often kept their noses cleanCredit: Steve Welsh

Football tips, stats and philosophy from Kevin Pullein.

Best bet

Hearts +1 Asian handicap cards
1pt 1.9 bet365

Hearts are having a good season. Whatever happens in their last five Scottish Premiership games they will finish third. They secured third place last Saturday with a 3-1 win at home to Edinburgh rivals Hibs. And the two teams meet again on Saturday in a Scottish FA Cup semi-final at neutral Hampden Park.

Hibs are not having a good season in the Premiership. Defeat last Saturday consigned them to a bottom-six finish. But they reached the League Cup final, where they took the lead before losing to Celtic, and if they win at Hampden they will be in another final, against either Celtic or Rangers.

A Hearts win is more likely, though. And because Hearts are more likely to score more goals they are less likely to receive more cards – in fact, even less likely than other competitors would be in a comparable contest because for some time Hearts and others managed by Robbie Neilson have received an unusually small share of the cards in their games.

Nonetheless, it is still possible that Hearts will receive as many or more cards than Hibs, and that possibility may have been underestimated by bet365.

Back Hearts +1 Asian handicap cards at decimal odds of 1.9, equivalent to the fractional price of 9-10. Each yellow will count as one card and each red as two cards. Only cards shown in normal time will count - any that are brandished in extra time will not.

If Hibs’ total is greater than Hearts’ total by two or more the bet will lose, if it is greater by one stakes will be returned, but if something else happens the bet will win.

This sort of bet can lose. It would have done last Saturday when Hearts were shown only one card and Hibs were shown three. Overall this season Hearts have received an even smaller share of the cards in their games than we should have anticipated from their excellent results, and they did so as well last season in the Championship. Before then Neilson-managed Dundee United did so for another two seasons in the Championship.

All of this makes Hearts +1 Asian handicap cards less likely than it would have been in the more distant past, but it is still possible that decimal odds should not be quite as big as 1.9. This sort of bet can also win. Hearts have played Hibs three times this season, twice at home, and twice the bet would have won.

Thought for the week

Before last Sunday’s English Premier League top-of-the-table game between Manchester City and Liverpool, managers Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp were complimentary of one another.

After a 2-2 draw of the highest quality, the players embraced. The managers said more nice words.

Perhaps the cuddles and the conversations would not have been quite so friendly if one of the teams had won. A draw left everyone where they were. And we do not know what will happen on Saturday when the teams meet again in an English FA Cup semi-final.

But Guardiola and Klopp are usually polite about opponents, and often praise them credibly. It is not just when they face each other. Long may it continue. Football could do with more of this.

I have been wrong about many players so forgive me for mentioning one I was right about. Luka Modric.

Even before he went to Tottenham I thought he should end up at Real Madrid. He has been there now for ten years, winning the Champions League four times.

He is 36 years old but still lasted all 120 minutes of Wednesday’s Champions League quarter-final second leg at home to Chelsea. And still rarely sends a pass astray. Every one is a thing of beauty. But purposeful too – into space for a team-mate to meet. And as for that assist with the outside of his right foot for Madrid’s first goal ...


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