MONDAY .....

I did not post anything on the blog over the weekend, as all of you who wanted to receive my daily notes were sent copies from Thursday- Sunday inclusive, we were a little unlucky on Sunday, but all five red type bets won on the first three days and overall these "official" selection made a return of 151.93% for the four days. Or if you prefer, 299 euros profit to a flat 50 euro stake in just four days.  Subscribers made a little more as they also had an outright bet on Dartford to win the Blue Square South playoffs (given the previous week) and congratulations to the Darts and us !

For those of you who did not bother to take up the free offer, I have posted some edited notes from today's email below, just so you do not think I have fallen off the edge of the world since last Wednesday !

I have a busy midweek planned , which will almost certainly include my third maximum stake bet of 2012.

MONDAY MAY 14th

Wow ! The EPL provided us with a day of unbelievavble drama and it was mentally draining just sitting and watching the action, even as a neutral. The Premier League must have been delighted with the events of yesterday, as the broadcast rights for seasons 2013-14 to 2015-16 are currently up for tender .

A win for either Bolton Wanderers or Rickie Fowler would have made it a very profitable day for us, as it was, we just about edged into the black with wins for Dartford and in the Arsenal game, where the best bet of the afternoon was landed inside 54 minutes . Wanderers had a lot of chances, led for 32 minutes and both Stoke City goals were controversial, Fowler finished in a tie for second, two strokes adrift of Matt Kuchar, but came close to making it two wins in a row and was just starting a big charge when a two over par six at the fifth hole cost him dear and probably a play off place. That stalled him for a while, he then came on strong through the back nine, but couldn't quite make up the lost ground. It is very difficult not to see him winning again sometime soon, he is taking this week off and I think that a break is much needed to reflect on what he has achieved over the last three weeks.

Next email will be at the normal time of 10.00 ( UK ) tomorrow and in that I will give a schedule for the rest of the week.

I have two matches to discuss today and one strong pick in the Scandinavian match which I urge you all to consider backing and I do not say that too often and also a "suggestion" at big odds.

But let's start with a few words about the League 1 playoff between Sheffield United and Stevenage Borough, the first match ended 0-0 on Friday and was, as the scoreline suggests, a typically tough, no quarter given, playoff first leg, with few chances and all involved terrified of making a mistake. Things tend to open up in the second leg and only two of the last thirteen Football League playoff games that finished all square in the first match have then gone into extra time and one of those was a wide open 3-3 draw. The six that ended 0-0 have failed to produce a stalemate in the second meeting, with five home wins and one away victory. These are two clubs with very different histories, Borough were still in the Conference two years ago and are looking to record a third straight promotion, United have fallen on hard times this year with a season in League 1, in 2009-10 they were 8th in the Championship three levels above Boro and were in the EPL as recently as 2007. This is almost as close as it gets to David and Goliath between two clubs within the same division, United's average home crowd is over five times that of the visitors and their smallest attendance this season is three times that of Boro's biggest ! Playing budgets are inline with those attendances and these two should not be competing at the same level and to be honest, long term they cannot, eventually United will move on and re-establish themselves as a Championship side at the upper end of the table, sooner or later Stevenage will find their true level and they will do well if that is above League 2 .But this is a one off game and anything can happen. The pair met here in the league at the end of last month and that day will long be remembered as the one on which they blew their chance of automatic promotion, even worse, they lost out to their cross town rivals Wednesday and the only way they can exorcise that particular demon is to win promotion themselves. That day United were 2-0 down early in the second half, after looking like they were going to overwhelm the visitors in the opening exchanges,but fought back to claim a share of the spoils at 2-2 and improved greatly after the introduction of Richard Cresswell and Ryan Flynn from the bench. The pace of Flynn out wide caused a lot of problems for Boro and so did the aerial bombardment that United put them under, however, it was clear on Friday night that Stevenage had done plenty of work to try and come up with a gameplan to stop the crosses from Matthew Lowton and Matthew Hill, but it was at the expense of some offensive threat and both coaches will have been giving tactics plenty of thought over the weekend. A really interesting game, if United still had disgraced top scorer in their ranks, they would be my pick, but if he had seen out the season, they would probably already be in the Championship. Stats do suggest we should see a winner this evening and United have just about had the upper hand over the last 120 minutes of action between the two, but no Evans ( of course) , James Beattie is also out and Cresswell might only be able to play a cameo role from the bench again, so goals are looking a problem and very little value in the current quotes. Fun to watch and that is what I will do, a watching brief for me.

Now for my selection(s)....

SUPER LIGAEN:FC NORDSJAELLAND- ODENSE

PREVIEW RESTRICTED TO SUBSCRIBERS ..... gowi8@btinternet.com

FC Nordsjællands:
1. Jesper Hansen (M), 2. Jores Okore, 4. Henrik Kildentoft, 5. Andreas Bjelland, 6. Enock Adu, 7. Nicolai Stokholm, 8. Patrick Mtiliga, 9. Tobias Mikkelsen, 10. Mikkel Beckmann, 12. Rawez Lawan, 16. Rune Pedersen, 17. Søren Christensen, 18. Michael Parkhurst, 19. Mark Gundelach, 20. Kasper Lorentzen, 21. Ivan Runje, 22. Andreas Laudrup, 23. Mario Ticinovic, 30. Lasse Petry.

OB: 2. Espen Ruud, 9. Rasmus Falk,11. Morten Skoubo,15. Kasper Larsen, 16. Jacob Schoop,18. Kalilou Traoré, 19. Eric Djemba-Djemba,20. Timmi Johansen,21. Rurik Gislason,22. Bernard Mendy,23. Oliver Larsen,24. Bashkim Kadrii, 25. Christian Sørensen, 26. Daniel Høegh,30. Daniel Krog, 33. Stefan Wessels,40. Christian Bannis

Good Luck.