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

Football tips, stats and philosophy from Kevin Pullein.

Where to watch

Lens v Montpellier
BT Sport 1, 8pm Saturday

Best bet

Montpellier +4 Asian handicap corners
1pt 1.925 bet365

Lens have won the corners count by four or more in each of their last four Ligue 1 games. They could do so again tonight at home to Montpellier – but bet365 may have underestimated the chance that they do not.

Back Montpellier +4 Asian handicap corners at decimal odds of 1.925, equivalent to the fractional price 37-40. If Lens win the corners count by five or more the bet will fail, if they win it by four stakes will be returned, but if something else happens the bet will succeed.

Lens have kicked on in the early weeks of the season. This is their third campaign back in Ligue 1. In the first two they finished seventh. After ten games of this season they are fourth with 21 points. Let us put that into context. At the last official count, Lens’s payroll was one-fourteenth the size of leaders PSG’s.

Lens have scored lots of goals and conceded few. They have enjoyed large chunks of possession and taken a huge share of the corners in their games – 64 per cent away and 71 per cent at home.

Montpellier have set off reasonably. They are tenth with 12 points. They have scored but also conceded a lot of goals, spent a middling amount of time in possession and taken about the share of the corners in their games that we should have anticipated.

What should we expect tonight? The result-related markets imply a 67 per cent chance of a Lens win, a 20 per cent chance of a draw and a 13 per cent chance of a Montpellier win. I do not disagree with those.

In Ligue 1 games with similar result expectations fair decimal odds about the away team +4 Asian handicap corners would normally be shorter than 1.925. Should they be bigger than usual tonight? Of course – but perhaps not as big as 1.925. Lens have achieved exceptional results and taken an extraordinary share of corners. Most likely, in both respects, they will regress a little over time.

Thought for the week

Manchester City won seven of their first nine Premier League games. Over the previous four seasons they averaged seven wins from every nine games. It does not seem unreasonable to anticipate them winning about seven of their next nine games. City, though, are an exception to the general rule, in this regard as in many others.

After nine rounds of Premier League fixtures there are teams with every number of wins apart from nought and nine. Top of the table Arsenal have eight wins, bottom of the table Leicester have one win.

Nine games is effectively quarter of a season. What generally is the relationship between the first and second quarters of a season? I studied results in the first and second nine games of the past 27 Premier League seasons – 1995-96 to 2021-22, every completed season since the number of competitors was reduced to 20.

In any nine-game period a typical Premier League team won three times. Teams who won three of their first nine games averaged three wins from the next nine.

Teams who won more than three of their opening nine games averaged more than three wins from the next nine – but not as many as before. Teams who won fewer than three of their opening nine games averaged fewer than three wins from the next nine – but not as few as before.

Some illustrations. What, for example, became of the predecessors of Arsenal and Leicester? Teams who won eight of their first nine games averaged six wins from the next nine – still a lot, just not as many as before. Teams who won only one of their first nine games averaged between two and three wins from the next nine – still a low number, but not as low as before.

There are exceptions to this rule, as to many others, but this is the rule.

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