evan_bartlett29

Last week saw Evan Bartlett’s first European Football Column get off to a winning start with all three tips coming in at a profit of 98.67%. Tottenham managed to start their season with a solid 1-0 away win against newly promoted Crystal Palace and we saw over 2.5 goals in both Atletico Madrid’s win against Sevilla and Mainz’s victory over Freiburg. This week sees the start of the Serie A season as well as a bumper round of games in England, Spain and Germany.

Premier League – England

The big three of Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea all started with wins under their new managers and our hopes of a close title race look better than ever. Elsewhere, Tottenham got their campaign off to a good start without wantaway Gareth Bale.

Meanwhile, their North London rivals Arsenal have had a torrid start to their season and after a summer when the club have spent no money, a 3-1 home defeat to Aston Villa understandably provoked supporter unrest. A 3-0 victory away to Fenerbahce in the 1st leg of their Champions League qualifier will have softened that blow somewhat but they will need to build on that with a strong performance against Fulham this weekend.

The highlight of the upcoming weekend’s Premier League action however is undoubtedly Chelsea’s trip to Old Trafford on Monday night where David Moyes will face his first big test as Manchester United manager.

Chelsea on the DRAW NO BET market at 2.16 looks a great option. In 15 previous ties against Manchester United, Mourinho’s teams have only lost on two occasions.

And while this is a completely new Chelsea squad, it does suggest that the Special One knows how to set his team up against the current champions and this will be an ideal time to strike against David Moyes in the early days of his tenure at Old Trafford.

La Liga – Spain

Business as usual in Spain last weekend as Barcelona and Real Madrid opened their campaigns with victory. But that rather simplifies the story. While Barcelona romped home to a 7-0 thrashing of Levante at Camp Nou, Real Madrid were given a stern test from Real Betis at the Santiago Bernabeu with a close 2-1 win sealed late on by debutant Isco.

Elsewhere, last season’s 3rd placed team Atletico Madrid impressed with a 3-1 win in a tricky game away to Sevilla and Athletic Bilbao showed signs of improvement on last season with a 2-1 win away to Valladolid.

The upcoming weekend sees plenty of evenly matched fixtures – except those involving Real and Barcelona. Rayo could prove slightly tougher opponents for Atletico than their odds of 12.5 suggest.

Real Sociedad will fancy their chances in their visit to newly promoted Elche who lost 3-0 on the opening day to Rayo and odds of 2.3 for a Basque victory do look appealing particularly after a mid-week win away to Lyon in the Champions League.

But one that really catches the eye is Villarreal against Valladolid in what looks set to be an open and attacking game. Above evens odds for over 2.5 goals in this fixture look too good to miss and are currently sat at a high 2.08.

The games involving these two sides last weekend saw a total of 8 goals and with the likes of Gio dos Santos, Jonathan and Javi Guerra lining up in this one, we can expect plenty of goals.

Serie A – Italy

New managers at Napoli (8.4), Inter (14) and Roma (32) make this Serie A season a fascinating one, with lots of uncertainties in the upper-half of the table – can Benitez take Napoli to the next level, can Mazzarri unite an Inter in disarray and will Rudi Garcia galvanise Roma into genuine title contenders?

One thing we do know for sure – that Juventus will be there or thereabouts in the title race and will be the team to beat for any side with genuine Scudetto ambitions.

AC Milan (6.4) have been under the radar slightly this season and look a decent bet to challenge for the title – they will be hoping their attractive attacking line with a settled Mario Balotelli and the exciting Stephan El Shaarawy can develop into a potent weapon.
Meanwhile, Fiorentina (15.5) will be many people’s dark horses with the signings of Mario Gomez, Josip Ilicic and Joaqin adding to an already exciting forward line.

Despite the abundance of goalscorers throughout the league, Serie A has a reputation for a lack of goals due to the emphasis placed on defensive strategy rather than attacking flair. But last season saw a total of 1,003 goals in the league at 2.64 goals per game. The Bundesliga (only 18 teams) had a total of 898 goals at exactly the same ratio of goals per game (2.64) and La Liga, without the free-scoring of Barcelona and Real Madrid had only 2.60 goals per game.

This slight misconception about Serie A means odds on over 2.5 goals per game can be attractive.

Last season, games involving Juve contained 95 goals (@2.5/game) and those involving Sampdoria contained 94 goals (@2.47/game).

With the additions of Fernando Llorente and Carlos Tevez at Juventus, odds of 2.02 on over 2.5 goals in their opening game away to Sampdoria look attractive.

Bundesliga – Germany

Over in the Bundesliga, Bayern Munich and Dortmund continued their winning start to the season with victories over Eintracht Frankfurt and Eintracht Braunschweig respectively. Joining them are Bayer Leverkusen, Mainz and Werder Bremen also on six points after their first two games.

The stand out results from the weekend however were Wolfsburg’s 4-0 win over Schalke and Hoffenheim’s 5-1 demolition job away to Rafael Van der Vaart’s Hamburg.

This week’s set of fixtures sees two of those undefeated teams line-up against each other with Dortmund hosting Werder Bremen as well as Bayern Munich taking on Nuremburg who have started their season with two 2-2 draws.

Bayer Leverkusen face a tough home fixture against Borussia Mönchengladbach who cruised to a 3-0 victory over Hannover last weekend. M’gladbach’s impressive victory, and the fact they gave a good account of themselves in their first game against Bayern Munich suggest their odds of victory at 6.0 look way too generous.

But give credit to Sami Hyypia’s Leverkusen team – in their manager’s own image – they do look a tough team to break down this year. Therefore I envisage a fairly tight contest with M’gladbach looking a decent prospect at 4.3 in the DRAW NO BET market.

Summary
Back Chelsea DRAW NO BET @ 2.16 (1 pt)
Back over 2.5 goals between Villarreal and Valladolid @ 2.08 (1 pt)
Back over 2.5 goals between Sampdoria and Juventus @ 2.02 (1 pt)
Back Borussia M’gladbach DRAW NO BET @ 4.3 (1 pt)

NB: Odds correct as of 22nd August

Evan Bartlett is a freelance journalist specialising in football and cricket. His football tips returned an astounding profit of +58.08% last season – after 13 points staked gave a return of 20.55. His best picks were Nigeria to win AFCON 2013 at 10.5 and Shakhtar to qualify from Champions League Group E at 2.9.

You can follow Evan on Twitter @ev_bartlett