Exeter v MK Dons is the match Kevin Pullein focuses on for his weekly best bet

Exeter for a long time have taken an unusually small share of the corners in their matches. But their prospects on a corners handicap today might still be better than bet365 envisage.

Back Exeter +1 Asian handicap corners at decimal odds of 1.9 – equivalent to fractional odds of 9-10 – in their League Two game at home to Milton Keynes Dons. If Exeter take as many or more corners than the Dons the bet will win, if they take one fewer stakes will be refunded and if anything else happens the bet will lose.

Dons manager Paul Tisdale returns to the club where he spent 12 seasons and enjoyed much success. He won promotions from the National League and League Two and was a runner-up in a pair of League Two playoff finals. He left last summer and joined the Dons.

Generally there is a relationship between the number of goals a team score and concede and the number of corners they earn and give away. That is understandable. Attacking can lead to goals for and corners for. Defending can lead to goals against and corners against.

Some teams take a different share of the corners in their games than we would have anticipated from the goals they scored and conceded. As I often say, such things do not normally last for a long time. But for some teams they do.

One such team is Exeter. In none of the 11 seasons since they returned to the Football League have they taken a higher share of the corners than we should have expected from the number of goals they scored and conceded. In two seasons they took the same proportion. In 11 seasons they have taken a lower share.

On average over those 11 seasons Exeter have taken between three and four per cent fewer corners than we would have expected from another team with the same results.

I think it is reasonable today to put Exeter in for between three and four per cent fewer corners than we would if they were another team with the same chance of scoring most goals at home to Milton Keynes Dons (whose share of corners this season has been in line with their share of goals).

That means accepting Exeter are less likely than the Dons to take most corners. But a bet on Exeter +1 Asian handicap corners pays out if both teams take the same number and is cancelled if the Dons take one more. Allowing for all those possibilities, arguably, suggests the odds should be shorter than 1.9.

Recommendation
Exeter +1 Asian handicap corners
1pt 1.9 bet365

Bet on this match at Soccerbase.com

Thought for the week

Only seven Premier League teams were in the FA Cup fifth round draw. Two are involved in fourth-round replays so the number who play in the fifth round could be as low as five. That is unusual.

Over the last 25 years – from 1994 to 2018 – the average number of Premier League teams playing in the fifth round was nine. Three times there were as few as seven and once only six.

Each time there were seven Premier League teams in the fifth round – 1994, 2003 and 2013 – two reached the final. But in 2008 when only six Premier League teams played in the fifth round Cardiff of the Championship went all the way to the final.

The fewer Premier League teams left in the FA Cup the more likely it becomes that a lower-level team will be able to avoid them in all or most of the rounds. Cardiff played only one Premier League team on the road to the final.

Millwall reached the final in 2004 without having played any Premier League teams. That year eight Premier League teams - just below average - contested the fifth round.

This year in the fifth round Chelsea and Manchester United – two of the three most likely winners – will play each other. So one of them will go out. That will leave only the survivors and possibly Manchester City – who will be away to Newport or Middlesbrough – from the Premier League’s Big Six.

More generally, though, the upside for the remaining Premier League teams is that overall the standard of opponents they could face from now on is lower than it would have been in many previous years. For most Premier League teams who do play in the fifth round the chance of reaching the final will have gone up.

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