Kevin Pullein: Lionel Messi's spat with Eric Abidal has got me thinking ...

The spat between Lionel Messi and Eric Abidal got me thinking.

Not because a player complained in public about something said by the sporting director. At most clubs there is only one possible winner in such a dispute. At Barcelona it is the other person. Messi is perhaps the best footballer of all time. If anybody had to move on it would not have been him.

Abidal is a former teammate of Messi. This was what got me thinking.

It is not unusual in Spain – or in Italy, or in Germany – for an ex-player to have a senior role in the running of a club. It is unusual in England.

Edu is technical director at Arsenal, Petr Cech is technical and performance advisor at Chelsea. Going back a few years, Niall Quinn was chairman of Sunderland. There are others, more than there used to be, but fewer than there should be.

A lot of footballers and ex-footballers are intelligent, thoughtful and articulate. Their experience as performers of the game would be valuable to a board, and they would have the non-sporting skills necessary in a room full of forceful personalities.

Saturday's best bet

Stevenage +3.5 Asian handicap corners
1pt 1.85 bet365

Back Stevenage +3.5 Asian handicap corners in their Sky Bet League Two game at Exeter.

Bet365 quote decimal odds of 1.85, a fractional price of 17-20. If Stevenage lose the corners count by four or more the bet will fail, otherwise it will succeed.

Which team are likely to have more possession at St James Park? Exeter. Which team are likely to score more goals? Exeter. Which team are likely to take more corners? Exeter. But the chance of them taking at least four more corners than Stevenage might not be as high as bet365 estimate.

This has been a good season so far for Exeter and a bad one for Stevenage.

Exeter are fourth in the table, below the automatic promotion line only on goal difference, though the team above it, their Devon rivals Plymouth, have a game in hand.

Stevenage are bottom. Only one team will be relegated but at the moment Stevenage are four points below second-bottom Morecambe. Graham Westley returned in December to become Borough manager for the fourth time.

It seems reasonable to suggest that Exeter are currently a better team than Stevenage. They will benefit from ground advantage as well. The result-related markets seem to be in the right sort of place with their implication that there is something like a 57 per cent chance of an Exeter win, a 26 per cent chance of a draw and a 17 per cent chance of a Stevenage win.

Over the past two decades in EFL games with similar result expectations fair decimal odds about the away team +3.5 Asian handicap corners typically would have been about 1.55. For this match they would be higher, but perhaps not as high as 1.85.

Exeter have taken a high share of the corners in their matches – high even for a team who have been getting such good results. This was not so last season under manager Matt Taylor, or in previous seasons.

Stevenage have taken a low share of the corners in their matches, and this has been going on for some time – nearly four seasons now, though it has not been a feature of Westley’s managerial career either in previous times at Stevenage or at other clubs.

Even if Exeter and Stevenage carry on in the same way in corners markets, however, it is debatable whether the odds for Stevenage +3.5 Asian handicap corners should be quite as big as 1.85.

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