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

Football tips, stats and philosophy from Kevin Pullein.

Best bet

Aberdeen 0 Asian handicap cards
1pt 1.775 bet365

Take Aberdeen to receive most cards in their Scottish Premiership game at Rangers.

Back Aberdeen 0 Asian handicap cards at decimal odds of 1.775, equivalent to the fractional price of 31-40. Each yellow will count as one card and each red will count as two.

If Aberdeen’s total is highest the bet will win, if both teams have the same total stakes will be returned, and if Rangers’ total is highest the bet will lose.

As I often say when discussing this sort of market, the first consideration should be what sort of game it seems reasonable to expect. The more defending a team are likely to have to do, the more likely it becomes that they will receive most cards.

Rangers’ payroll this season is probably between four and five times the size of Aberdeen’s. Rangers should be and nearly always are better than the Dons. And today they are playing at home.

Odds in result-related markets imply something like a 73 per cent chance of a Rangers win, an 18 per cent chance of a draw and a nine per cent chance of an Aberdeen win. They seem about right to me.

In previous seasons in Premiership games with similar result expectations fair decimal odds about the away team 0 Asian handicap cards would typically have been shorter than 1.775.

Rangers and Aberdeen have some history, but in previous meetings this does not seem to have made any difference to the distribution of cards.

Aberdeen across all games this season have received a smaller share of the cards than we should have anticipated from the number of times they have won, drawn and lost. They received fewer cards than Rangers when the teams drew at Pittodrie in January.

The right price for Aberdeen 0 Asian handicap cards at Rangers today would be bigger than for most comparable contests in the past, but there is a possibility that it still should not be as big as 1.775.

Thought for the week

What has been the relationship in two-legged knockout ties between the score in the first leg and qualification after the second leg?

The Champions League round-of-16 second legs start next week. Results in the first legs were symmetrical: there were two home wins, four draws and two away wins.

Chelsea won 2-0 at home to Lille, PSG won 1-0 at home to Real Madrid. Benfica v Ajax finished 2-2, Atletico Madrid v Manchester United, Salzburg v Bayern Munich and Villarreal v Juventus all finished 1-1. Liverpool won 2-0 at Inter and Manchester City won 5-0 at Sporting.

I studied two-legged knockout ties in the Champions League and European Cup over the 30 seasons from 1989-90 to 2018-19. I stopped then because of the impact of Covid and the absence of fans. There will be a difference this season in tiebreak procedures: the away-goals rule will no longer apply if scores are level on aggregate after 90 minutes in the second leg.

These were the relevant qualification rates: 25 per cent for teams who lost away in the first leg by two goals, 46 for teams who lost away in the first leg by one goal, 66 per cent for teams who drew away in the first leg, 97 per cent for teams who won away in the first leg by two goals and 100 per cent for teams who won away in the first leg by five goals.

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