Last week we moved our podcast to blog form with the lack of domestic football with the idea we’d be back on our usual audio platforms this week, but best laid plans and all that hey. Struck down by a vomiting bug, Sam has lost his voice, which for the majority of people that listen to our podcast will be no great shame. As Mrs Kelly famously said on It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia “I’m as sick as a 3 legged dog on the streets of India”
So back to the blog again this week, Liam and Sam have collaborated on their usual 5 football picks, as well as 5 picks from week 6 of the NFL. And with domestic football making its triumphant return this week that’s where we’ll begin.
PICK 1
First up we have Brighton and Hove Albion away at probably all but relegated Norwich City. The visitors are going along nicely this season, with a solitary defeat at home to Everton their only loss thus far. Since that defeat Brighton have won 3 and drawn 2 of their last 5. Their current run of 5 games without defeat has seen them keep 3 clean sheets and only concede twice. The defeat to Everton being the only time this season that Brighton have conceded more than once and boast a total of 5 clean sheets from 9 games in all competitions.
Their hosts Norwich City finally got their first points of the campaign thanks to a draw with equally poor Burnley, but even then they failed to add to their league goals tally of 2, extending their their run of games without a goal to 3 meaning that Norwich have only scored in 3 of 9 matches in all competitions.
When you couple gun shy Norwich and defensively strong Brighton, the visitors have only conceded 3 goals in all competitions this season, this pick is one of the straight forward that we’ll make this week.
Norwich are a side that we’ve spoken about at length on many occasions on the podcast, but Brighton were a team that had gone slightly under my radar I (Sam) must admit, they’ve has a sneakily good start to the season and we thoroughly expect that to continue against Norwich.
I also lean to under 2.5 goals priced at 11/10. That’s hit on 7 of 9 Brighton games this season and both or Norwich’s last 2.
PICK 2
An awful lot can change in a short space of time in football, and we’ve seen that with Newcastle, !4 years of Mike Ashley is over, and Newcastle are now the richest football club in the entire world, excuse my smugness. BUT by the same token nothing can change in football too, and that’s exactly what’s happened to Newcastle in pure footballing terms.
Still winless, Steve Bruce is still the manager whose team have won 5 from 37, still don’t have a good squad, the plan is still to give Allan Saint-Maximin the ball and hope he comes up with some magic, or hope Callum Wilson can pull them out of a hole, still no clean sheets, still averaging one goal a game and conceding 2.2 average goals per game, still in the bottom 3 and still i could go on and on.
The first game under the new regime should bring with it a special atmosphere on Sunday, but there is still an awful lot of ill will towards Bruce. And that ill will could hinder Newcastle if Spurs were to go ahead early, Newcastle fans dreaming of big money signings and European football, wont have the patience when most feel Bruce should have been out of job within 5 minutes of the takeover being completed.
Spurs are clearly the better side, they are by no means a good side when comparing them to the top 6, but they are comfortably better than Newcastle, as much as that pains me to say.
There was a report in one of the broadsheets this week saying that players morale had been hit by the fact Bruce hadn’t been sacked, so as i say, so much has changed for Newcastle in the last week, but in reality nothing has, yet.
Both teams have scored in each of Newcastle’s last 5 games, and in each of Spurs last 4, you can get that at 8/13.
PICK 3
There were 3 bets on the table when I’d finished looking into this game from Serie A, the other two being BTTS and over 2.5 and the other straight over 2.5 goals, time will tell which side was the best to be on.
That side for me was Inter to score 2 or more, although they’ve drawn blanks in both of their Champions League games this season, in the league Inter have scored 2 or more in each of their games so far. Winning 5 and drawing 2.
Lazio have only kept 1 clean sheet this term that coming in the Champions League against Lokomotiv Moscow and have conceded 2 or more in 4 of their 7 league games.
Full disclosure I initially leaned towards Inter to win too, but Lazio are an impressive 16 games without defeat at home stretching back to last year but they’ve conceded 2 in their last two home games. Lazio have also kept 7 clean sheets in that run of 16 games but Inter Milan have failed to score only once in their last 25 away league games. Inter have also scored 2+ in 19 of those previous 25. A lot of which will have been down to Romelu Lukaku but Edin Dzeko and Lautro Martinez have 11 goals in the league with the rest of the squad notching another 11, meaning that Inter average 3.14 goals per game in the league and Lazio are conceding on average 1.71 goals per game in the league.
PICK 4
Arsenal come into their home game on Monday night seemingly having turned a small corner in their season, with 3 wins and a draw coming from their last 4 outings, of those three wins two of those came at home, a must not lose game against Norwich and a big home win against North London rivals Tottenham.
Arsenal have also managed 3 clean sheets in their last 4 games too, a stark contrast to their early season form where they shipped 9 goals in their opening 3 Premier League games, including 5 to Manchester City.
Facing up to a Crystal Palace side in the middle of a rebuild, a solitary win all season for The Eagles alongside only 2 clean sheets, Palace have 3 away wins this calendar year, and no win in 5 on the road going back to last season. Their last win away from home coming against a rock bottom and already doomed to relegation Sheffield United back in May.
This season Crystal Palace have 2 defeats and a draw from their 3. League games.
PICK 5
Lastly on the football side of things we have table toppers Forest Green travelling to Scunthorpe who are propping up the professional ranks in League Two.
Scunthorpe have an unenviable recent record of 3 games, 3 defeats, conceding 13 and scoring twice and no win in 7 losing 6 of those. One of the favourites for promotion from League 2 Forest Green lost last time out to another one of their promotion rivals Swindon, what better side to bounce back against than this Scunthorpe side.
Before that loss last time out Forest Green had won 3 and drawn 2 of their last 5 games, and won 4 of 5 previous to that.
Forest Green are another side we’ve talked about at length on the podcast and one that has been very profitable for us so far this footballing year, and we certainly expect that trend to continue this week.
And that concludes the first part of the blog/podcast week. And the end of the football part of our write ups. Back tomorrow night for our nfl picks.
Fat Lad Sports 