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

Football tips, stats and philosophy from Kevin Pullein.

Best bet

Troyes -0.5 Asian handicap corners
1pt 1.95 bet365

Back Troyes to take most corners at home to Reims in Ligue 1 on Sunday. Bet365 offer decimal odds of 1.95, equivalent to the fractional price 19-20, about Troyes –0.5 Asian handicap corners. This requires Troyes to take most corners.

Troyes are back in the French top division after three seasons away, and this time they could stay. The last three times they were promoted – for seasons 2012-13, 2015-16 and 2017-18 – they went straight back down again.

Before this weekend’s round of fixtures, Troyes were 15th, although only two points above the relegation playoff position of 18th. Reims were three places and seven points ahead of Troyes.

The result-related markets regard Troyes with home advantage as slightly more likely to score most goals. This seems reasonable to me. The odds imply something in the region of a 38 per cent chance of a home win, a 31 per cent chance of a draw and a 31 per cent chance of an away win.

Corners tend to be more plentiful than goals. Consequently ties are less common in corners markets than draws are in goals markets. The more of any thing there is in a sporting contest the less likely it is that all participants will get the same number.

Across many seasons in Ligue 1 games with similar result expectations to those for Troyes v Reims, the home team took most corners a bit more often than the 51 per cent of the time implied by decimal odds of 1.95.

This season there does not seem to have been anything particularly unusual about the corners patterns in either Troyes or Reims games. Tomorrow Troyes may not take more corners than Reims, but the chance that they do may be at least a little bit better than anticipated by odds of 1.95.

Thought for the week

Italy will not be at this World Cup. They were not at the last World Cup. In between they became European champions.

I read an article saying that winning Euro 2020 had only papered over cracks. Of course, this is the sort of thing I would expect to read after Italy have lost a World Cup playoff to North Macedonia by an added-time goal.

What becomes the established narrative for any development is a story that says it was bound to happen, and for such-and-such a reason.

I think there can be a better explanation, for Italy not going to the World Cup and many other things. Sometimes this sort of thing just happens.

A quality that worked well for Italy at the European Championship worked against them in World Cup qualification. That quality is being hard to beat.

Italy had home advantage for their Euro 2020 group and won all three games. Then they played four knockout ties outside Italy. In only one of those were they leading at the end of normal time.

In the knockout rounds of an international competition the first priority is not to lose. If you are drawing at the end of normal time there is still the chance that by skill or luck you will come out on top in one of the tiebreak procedures, extra time or penalties. Portugal preceded Italy as European champions. In only one game out of seven were they leading at the end of normal time.

Italy did not lose any of the eight games they played in their 2022 World Cup qualification group, but they drew as many as they won and finished second rather than first, which is why they went into the playoffs.

If just one or two kicks had turned out differently they might have topped the group or beaten North Macedonia in the playoffs. And if they had gone to the World Cup they probably would have been one of the better teams there. Then nobody would have written about papered-over cracks.

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