As is traditional with English football there is an entire round of matches in the Premier League on Boxing Day with some important looking matches scheduled to be played.
They begin with the lunchtime kick off in the Premier League as Stoke host Man Utd at the Britannia Stadium before a series of 3pm matches kick off. They see Aston Villa hosting West Ham, Bournemouth taking on Crystal Palace, Chelsea playing Watford in a London derby of sorts, leaders Leicester travel to Liverpool while Man City host Sunderland and Swansea face West Brom. Tottenham vs Norwich round off the 3pm starts.
After they have finished Newcastle welcome Everton to St James’ Park in the 5.30 kick off and then Southampton play host to Arsenal in the 7.45pm kick off at St Mary’s to conclude a busy day in the top flight.
I’ve found Man Utd matches hard to call all season long so I’m going to leave that alone even though I’m desperate to take Stoke with the plus handicap. Their recent loss to Crystal Palace at home is enough of a concern for me to ignore that match.
In total I’m going with three bets on a frantic day of action. The first is at Villa Park where West Ham should be favourites to beat Aston Villa and the fact they’re not is too much for me to ignore here.
Villa haven’t won a game the opening day of the season so the chances of losing a West Ham play on the level ball line is remote but I actually think the Hammers will win this anyway. While it is true that they have struggled for goals recently they haven’t looked like conceding so one might just be enough.
Villa have shown signs of something at Southampton and Newcastle recently although both will be regretting key misses to allow Villa a share of the spoils. I just think West Ham will be too good for Villa in the final third even with the players they have unavailable and at 11/10 I’m all over West Ham here.
Another match I like in the 3pm kick offs come in the form of the Liverpool vs Leicester match where Leicester look a stupid price. To be getting them on a +0.5 handicap is just plain wrong and I can’t ignore that either.
Leicester are top of the table on merit and in Vardy and Mahrez they have the two men most likely to take advantage of the injuries Liverpool have in defence. It might be that Liverpool bag goals the other way but to win this match they might feasibly need to score four times or three at the very least.
I’m not sure I can back them to do that at the present time so I’m happy to get on Leicester on that handicap line.
My final bet comes in one of the evening matches as Newcastle face Everton. Both sides have shown good things going forward in recent times and both have shown fallacies in defence so I’m expecting some goals in this match.
The last five games these two have played this season have had at least two goals in them but Boxing Day often brings out more natural attacking instincts in front of passionate crowds so I’m expecting at least three goals here.
Back West Ham (0AH) to beat Aston Villa for a 5/10 stake at 2.10 with BetVictor
Back Leicester (+0.5AH) to beat Liverpool for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with BetVictor
Back Newcastle vs Everton – Over 2.5 goals for a 4/10 stake at 1.78 with BetVictor
Blog football YTD: -48.05pts
