Mark Langdon: A 66-1 Afcon shot for you to love this winter

Two things happened on Thursday which totally stopped me in my tracks, almost making me rub my eyes in disbelief.

The first came when the TV games were announced for the fourth round of the FA Cup. Sunday, January 28: West Brom v Brentford or Wolves at 11.45am. Unlike those involved in Monday's draw on ITV, I am fully aware that there is a potential fierce derby in the offing if Wolves get past Brentford to set up a trip to the Hawthorns, but no game of professional football should be played in the morning.

The second stunner came when reading the football Pricewise tables for Friday's Racing Post. In the Scottish League One Falkirk are as short as 1-40 to beat 40-1 pokes Edinburgh City - the kind of odds which would usually be reserved for international clashes involving Andorra or Liechtenstein.

A significant number of Edinburgh City's first-team squad departed the club just before Christmas and either side of that the rock-bottom side lost 7-2 at Cove Rangers and 5-2 at home to Hamilton, although last week's 3-1 reverse at Alloa only came about following two late goals. Edinburgh have nine points from 19 games, 43 fewer than runaway leaders Falkirk, who are beginning to eye an invincible season.

Falkirk boss John McGlynn has suggested he might rotate a few members of his usual first team for the trip to Meadowbank, but even so the betting suggests this is about as big of a mismatch as you can get for a league fixture.

In any game of football anything can happen and who knows, maybe Edinburgh will rise to the immense challenge which awaits them this weekend. Impossible is nothing as the Adidas slogan once read...although those marketing gurus who came up with that had presumably never tried to be the Edinburgh City manager in charge of trying to dish out a first league defeat of the season to Falkirk.

An outsider that might give you more bang for your buck comes in the Africa Cup of Nations top goalscorer market where my hunt for value started in the belief Algeria were the best bet to win the competition and ended with their wide forward or striker Mohamed Amoura standing out at 66-1 to claim the Golden Boot honours if the Desert Warriors do indeed go deep at Afcon.

There's a lot to love about Amoura and not just because he scored against the mighty Burundi in a warm-up game on Tuesday.

Amoura has been rampant for Belgian league leaders Union SG this season following a summer switch from Swiss side Lugano, scoring 13 league goals in 15 matches, which is more than decent considering he didn't even start a game until September 24.

Brighton owner and betting wizard Tony Bloom is involved with Union and it would be only right to assume the same kind of data which is used to allow the Seagulls to identify players is in place in Belgium too. Simon Adingra and Kaoru Mitoma had spells in Belgium before making a splash by the seaside for Brighton, while Union were also able to bring Victor Boniface to the club and he is now part of a Leverkusen side who are top of the Bundesliga.

In short, Union know what they are doing, so if they believe Amoura is a talent take the hint and his shot volume is ridiculous. He averages 5.26 shots per 90 minutes and 2.84 efforts on target per 90 this season according to fbref.com. For comparison the shot-crazy Darwin Nunez leads both stats in the Premier League at 4.67 and 1.93 per 90. Amoura shoots more than Nunez - that's good enough for me!

Want a bet to keep you warm this winter? That's Amoura. 

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