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

Football tips, stats and philosophy from Kevin Pullein.

Best bet

Fiorentina 0 Asian handicap cards
1pt 1.95 bet365

Bet365 may have underestimated the chance of Fiorentina receiving most cards in their Serie A game at Bologna on Sunday. Back Fiorentina 0 Asian handicap cards at decimal odds of 1.95, equivalent to the fractional price of 19-20.

Each yellow will count as one card and each red as two cards. If Fiorentina’s total is higher than Bologna’s the bet will win, if both totals are the same stakes will be returned, and if Bologna’s total is higher than Fiorentina’s the bet will lose.

Both teams have started the season well. They are level on 24 points, although Fiorentina boast a superior goal difference and are in sixth while Bologna are eighth.

Bookmakers nonetheless regard Fiorentina as a better team, and they are probably right to do so. Fiorentina’s budget is bigger, and over time that tends to count. Result-related markets imply a 34 per cent chance of a home win, a 29 per cent chance of a draw and a 37 per chance of an away win.

In previous seasons in Serie A games with similar result expectations fair decimal odds about the away team receiving most cards would not usually have been as big as 19-20. Should they be today? Possibly not.

Bologna have received a lot of cards this season, but so have their opponents. This season, and in the previous two and a half season when they were coached by Sinisa Mihajlovic, Bologna’s cards for and against have been in the sort of ratio we should have anticipated from the goals they have scored and conceded.

In other words, there has been nothing conspicuously unusual about Bologna’s cards in relationship to their opponents’ cards, though the combined totals for both teams have tended to be high.

Fiorentina this season have also received a large number of cards but so too have their opponents. In previous seasons the totals were not so high. In previous seasons, though, the relationship between cards for Fiorentina and their opponents was pretty much what we should have anticipated from the goals they scored and conceded.

Any outcome is possible in this market, as in any other. But it is arguable that the chance of Fiorentina receiving most cards may be higher than bet365 suggest.

Thought for the week

Will it happen today? Newcastle play at home to Burnley looking for their first win of the season in their 15th Premier League game.

Even if they do not win, however, their plight will not be unprecedented. Sheffield United went 17 games without a win last season. QPR went 16 without a win in 2012-13.

The Premier League reduced to its present size at the start of season 1995-96. Since then 15 teams have begun a season by reaching double figures without a win.

Newcastle also did it three seasons ago. Then they went ten games without a win. Afterwards they recovered to finish 13th. Only two other teams, though, have avoided relegation – Blackburn finished 13th after failing to win in their opening 11 games in 1996-97 and Derby finished 17th after failing to win in their opening 13 games in 2000-01. Will Newcastle escape from a worse position this season?

After getting that first win every other team did better in the rest of the season than they had done before. Typically they averaged just under a point a game over the rest of the season. In other circumstances that would be dicing-with-relegation form. After a start of ten plus games without a win it made avoiding the drop extraordinarily difficult.

Of course other clubs did not have the new Newcastle owners’ enormous funds to spend in the January transfer window. As new Newcastle manager Eddie Howe has acknowledged, though, persuading better players to sign is not easy when a team could be playing next season in the Championship.

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