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Thursday 31 August 2023 19:41, UK
After nailing Erling Haaland to score a header at 6/1 last weekend, our betting guru Jones Knows is back to hunt out some more Premier League value.
There are few better feelings in life than that split second just before you know a bet is going to land. That was the feeling when Jack Grealish's delicious ball was hung up to the back post where Erling Haaland was arriving from close range to thump a header home. The 6/1 winner was a nice tonic on what actually was another frustrating weekend, where I managed to play all around making significant profit.
Cristian Romero was partly to blame.
Spurs failed to threaten from set-pieces vs Bournemouth, meaning our 18/1 first goalscorer selection went down the drain as did our 11/2 treble on Romero having at least one shot, Jarrod Bowen a shot on target and Wolves avoiding defeat at Everton. Those with sharp brains will have spotted that the other two legs of that treble cantered home, leaving me a little twitchy, especially as I left Bowen to score at 9/2 out of my best bets staking plan despite giving him a very big shout in the predictions column. Therefore, we remain in minus money for the season. Not for long though, I hope.
Quick warning for this one: you must get your bets on before 8pm on Friday night as it involves the Luton vs West Ham clash. My punting instincts have drawn me to the West Ham player fouls market though where numbers may spike up against foul-drawing Luton duo Tahith Chong and Ross Barkley in the engine room. Barkley won three fouls at Chelsea last Friday while Chong won four - in total Luton drew 14 fouls in the match and I'd be expecting similar lines to be hit here. Therefore, the West Ham to make 10 or more fouls should land in what should be a hostile and raucous atmosphere under the lights.
Hopefully, we'll be rolling over to Saturday for a win double involving Everton and Brighton both picking up maximum points. Everton's new centre-forward Beto looks tailor-made for a Sean Dyche team during his cameo on Wednesday and their performance data in attack has them underperforming hugely (4.69 worth of non-penalty expected goals), suggesting their process in terms of chance creation is healthy and goals will flow soon enough. Starting here, where they look borderline good for the away win.
Meanwhile, Brighton's recent record against Arsenal, Man City, Tottenham, Man Utd, Newcastle, Chelsea and Liverpool is pretty outrageous, hence why I'm interested in them against Newcastle, who may regress slightly this season. In their last 20 matches across all competitions against the aforementioned opponents, Brighton have won 11 of those fixtures, winning an aggregate score 35-26.
They possess the relentless attacking style to wobble a Newcastle defence that isn't as formidable as you might think. It's a defence that have kept just two clean sheets in their last 21 Premier League games while Nick Pope, who has lost his England place, has seen a dramatic decline in his save ratio which has fallen from 83 per cent to 68 per cent in the last 21 matches.
Enzo Fernandez is a player to follow across various markets over the next few months.
The Argentine is becoming the driving force, taking free-kicks, corners, penalties and is playing much further up the field under the new manager in a position he feels best suited to. When Mauricio Pochettino needed some oomph from the bench against AFC Wimbledon in midweek, Fernandez was called upon and he grabbed his first Chelsea goal.
He'll be disappointed his goal or assists output stands at zero in the Premier League so far - but as shown by his cool and calm finish in midweek, goals will come. In his three games, he's posted seven shots to an expected goals tally of 1.25. Granted, almost half of that xG emanated from his missed penalty at West Ham but a player with such all-action tendencies, strong attacking data and takes free-kicks and penalties, shouldn't be as big as 11/1 with Sky Bet to score first at home to Nottingham Forest.
