Monday, April 23, 2012

MONDAY.... BASTIA ALMOST THERE .....

Saturday was a frustrating day, I made a profit, three of my four red type selections won, but I was reasonably close to landing the big odds multiple bet and my beloved Brenford, blew a huge opportunity to move into the playoff zone. The Bees missed two penalties ( !), both of which hit the woodwork, with the score 0-0 at the time, the home keeper should also have been sent off for the first incident, Stevenage had created nothing in the first hour, but took the lead almost immediately after the Bees missed the second. Salt was rubbed into the wound late in the game, when Sam Saunders who missed the second spot kick and who is the team's dead ball specialist, curled in a free kick from twice the distance in injury time !

Anyway, I had a solid Sunday and that eased the pain a little.

MONDAY APRIL 23rd

Pleasing day yesterday and the eight events previewed, produced a whole host of big priced winners.

Granada @ 2.03 for strong stakes and the draw in the Fiorentina-Inter game @ 3.30 could hardly have got the day off to a better start.

Next up was the Manchester United- Everton fixture where another "strong" bet @ 2.10 for both teams to score was landed inside 40 minutes and the highlighted big quote for the visitors to score twice @ 6.0 followed early in the second half.

Late results also went our way, when Valencia to score three or more @ 3.25 obliged and on the PGA tour, John Huh landed a full payout @ 6.0 in the market without the top two and/or a tie @ 8.50 in the without Curtis market, a terrific way to end the day.

Huh was never really in danger with this bet, he is just 21 years of age, 22 next month, has only played eleven US tour events , won once and could have added another yesterday. He gave up ten + strokes to the field on Thursday and then got to work, picking up 9 strokes on Curtis and 14 on Every over the next three days, only dropping a stroke at one of his last 54 holes on a tough course, where no one got double digits under par for four rounds. Huh was -12 for his last three and to call this an impressive performance is a bit of an understatement, a little like calling bungee jumping in Zimbabwe as not for the squeamish !

Huh is not a player we should be in a rush to oppose and I am sure that we can back him again in some way, in the coming weeks.

Luke Donald was a sunday winner for us @ 9.20 a few weeks back and we have been incredibly close with two other big prices, Robert Allenby @17.0 traded at sub 1.03 with a hole to play, but found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and Phil Mickelson @ 13.5 entered the final round of the Masters as favourite and paid a big price for what was effectively one very loose shot. Those two cost us almost 30 points of profit, but I have a very good handle on the PGA tour this year and anticipate plenty of winners through the summer.

Another very busy week in prospect and I am 95% certain that I will have my second "maximum" double stake selection of 2012 on Friday, but I will confirm this the day before and send the relevant email at a predetermined exact time.

Onto today, a kind of low profile day in that I am only putting up one bet, but I am quite keen on it....

FRANCE LIGUE 1: BASTIA - CHATEAUROUX

You and I have known for many months and now everyone else knows, that Bastia are the best team in Ligue 2, they have scored the most goals, conceded the fewest and head the table with an eight point lead over Reims with this game in hand. More importantly, three points tonight would give them a 15 point advantage over fourth placed Clermont, with five rounds to play and a vastly superior ( 18+) goal difference. So cue huge celebrations and a party atmosphere is planned at the stade de Furiani, with flags being handed out to every spectator.

Chateauroux are in tenth place with 44 points, that sees them seven points clear of Le Havre currently in 18th and the same number adrift of Troyes who are in the final promotion spot, again, with this game in hand. They are exactly in mid table from that point of view, only one team Vannes has ever been relegated with 44 points and that was a very freakish occurence, as they won 12 games, the same as the team who finished seventh ! So, we can assume that they are already safe and if not, they have three home games remaining to claim the, at most ,one point which will seal the deal. Therefore, surely we can expect them to come looking for the points which would take them to within four of the promotion spots, it is that "freeroll" we often refer to. They don't really do draws in any case, just five in their last 38 league starts (13.16%) and even given Bastia's daunting home record ( 12-4-0) and arriving without top scorer Maxime Bourgeois, they should be looking for the win. They have named four strikers in their squad and two, plus a midfielder have all scored five or more goals this year, so they have players who know where the goal is and appear to be coming with the right approach and this is key.

We talked ahead of the visit from Amiens on March 16th, (see below), about how the hosts adapt to their visitors approach, if teams come here and look to shut up shop, they are content to try and grind things out, but if teams open up, they will follow suit , safe in the knowledge that they can outscore most in a shootout. Bastia beat Amiens 2-1 that day ( hooray... good old Amiens !) and have since beaten Laval 3-2 and Guingamp 3-1 here. If Chateauroux come with similar intent and apart from damage limitation, which seems to make no sense, what is the point of doing otherwise, this game should produce goals, with the visitors also contributing. The visitors actually have a great record here, winning on five of six visits, scoring 12 in that sequence. I do not think an away win is totally out of the question, but they would almost certainly need two goals in any case , with Bastia scoring in every home start this season and in 8 from 9 on the road, the likeliest outcome remains a home win with both on the scoresheet, so 1.5 units "over" 2.5 goals 2.0 general quote for me.

Bastia : Novaes, Baccarelli - Angoula, Choplin, Mary, Harek, Rothen, Diallo, Maoulida, Thauvin, Khazri, Suarez, Cioni, Marque, Vincent, El Azzouzi.
Châteauroux : Fernandez, Caradec - Reynaud, Inez, Fournier, Sambou, Neves, Fauque, Orinel, Grange, Kashi, Hautcoeur, Beauvue, Mandrichi, Lafourcade, Dupuis.

Good Luck.

FRIDAY MARCH 16TH

FRANCE LIGUE 2 :

BASTIA - AMIENS

We last talked about Bastia on Monday, when they again showed their class with a 3-1 win at Lens, that gives them a ten point lead over Troyes in fourth spot and top flight football is coming back to the second city of Corsica, they are simply playing too well to mess things up from this position. Latest lambs to the "slaughter" are basement club Amiens, who gave themselves a lifeline with a 2-0 win over Angers on Tuesday, so they have had 24 hours less recovery time, but have little to lose tonight and have showed in recent road games at Lens, Boulogne, Clermont,Guingamp and Laval, that they are now prepared to gamble and try to take the game to opponents, which was not the case earlier in the season, they scored in all five of those games and I expect them to approach this in a similar manner. I have reproduced the whole email from March 2nd below, which included a look at the Guingamp match and also the Tours game that day, more of them later.  Bastia have conceded in 8 of their 13 home games, of the five where they kept cleansheets, at least four of them where to teams who came looking to shut up shop and try and steal a point, all five teams lost. When teams have come here with a more offensive approach, Bastia are happy to open up and go toe to toe. The over 2.5 goal line at circa 1.97 is acceptable, but I prefer the odds against quotes for Amiens to score, or the 2.25 + for both to score, there is even some 2.375 around and that is a terrific price IMO, for something that has happened in eight of the visitors last ten road games, if 2.25 or better is available to you, I make that a solid 1.5 unit selection.

Bastia : Novaes, Baccarelli - Angoula, Mary, Sans, Harek, Choplin, Genest, Khazri, Thauvin, Cahuzac, Rothen, Diallo, Maoulida, El-Azzouzi, Suarez.
Amiens : Ruffier - Mainfroi, Mienniel, Lybohy, Ieslch, Martin, Paul, Kharbouchi, Djaballah, Saïfi, Touzghar, Cissé, Cirilli, Bazile, Puyo, Zobiri.

Contact: gowi8@btinternet.com

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