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

Football tips, stats and philosophy from Kevin Pullein.

Best bet

Saint-Etienne +2 corners handicap 6pm Saturday
1pt 4-5 Hills

Betting preview

Saint-Etienne versus Monaco in Ligue 1 pits a team hoping to move out of the relegation zone against a team hoping to move into the Champions League places.

Monaco rightly are clear favourites to score most goals. They are also more likely to take most corners. But the prospects for Saint-Etienne on corners handicaps may be better than bookmakers anticipate.

Back Saint-Etienne +2 corners handicap with William Hill at 4-5. If Saint-Etienne take more corners, the same number or one fewer than Monaco the bet will win, but if anything else happens it will lose.

Both teams have enjoyed a better second half of the season after changing manager around the turn of the year. Pascal Dupraz was the new man for Saint-Etienne, Philippe Clement for Monaco.

A point today for Monaco would take them into a Champions League place, at least until tomorrow. A point for Saint-Etienne would lift them out of the relegation places, at least until tomorrow. Naturally both would prefer three points.

Odds in result-related markets imply something like a 53 per cent chance of a Monaco win, a 25 per cent chance of a draw and a 22 per cent chance of a Saint-Etienne win.

Over several seasons in Ligue 1 in games with similar result expectations, fair odds about the home team +2 corners would typically have been meaningfully shorter than 4-5.

They should not be as short today as they should have been for some previous contests. Since the start of last season Monaco have performed even better in corners handicap markets than we should have anticipated from the number of games they have won, drawn and lost, first under Niko Kovac then under Clement.

Over time those sorts of discrepancies tend to become progressively smaller. This season Monaco have not over-achieved in corners handicap markets by quite as much as they did last season. And it is possible that odds for Saint-Etienne +2 corners handicap today should be at least a bit shorter than William Hill’s 4-5.

Thought for the week

Up, down, up, down, up – what comes next? Fulham were promoted from the Championship in 2018, relegated from the Premier League in 2019, promoted from the Championship in 2020, relegated from the Premier League in 2021. They have won promotion from the Championship again this season. What will they do next season in the Premier League?

With four games to play Fulham have 86 points. They already have more than the 81 points they accumulated last time they were promoted and are likely to surpass the 88 points they accumulated the time before. In each of those seasons Fulham went up through the playoffs. This season they will be promoted automatically.

Playoff winners have tended to fare worse than automatically promoted teams in the Premier League, although this season, I know, it is likely that the playoff winners will stay up and the two automatically promoted teams will go down. The relegation rate in the Premier League for playoff winners has been about 56 per cent. For automatically promoted teams it has been about 40 per cent.

There is something else worth adding, though. There is an overall relationship between performances in the Championship and performances in the Premier League. The better a team do in one the better they are likely to do in the other.

When Fulham won promotion before, reasonable expectations based on their results in the Championship would have been in the high 30s for points in the Premier League. Their actual totals were 26 then 28 points. Markedly lower.

Reasonable expectations based on Fulham’s results in the Championship this season are likely to be around 41 points next season in the Premier League. Twice before they fell short and were relegated from the Premier League. Will it be different next time?

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