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Thursday, August 30, 2007

Arsenal through to Group stages - 20/1 to win

UEFA Champions League Betting
Arsenal are 20/1 to win the Champions League with Ladbrokes after they easily progressed to the group stage by easing past Sparta Prague 3-0 on Wednesday night to secure a 5-0 aggregate triumph.

Leading 2-0 from the first leg teenager Theo Walcott brilliantly set up Czech star Tomas Rosicky's early strike while late goals from Cesc Fabregas and Eduardo Da Silva completed the win.

Meanwhile Celtic also advanced to the lucrative group stages - for which the draw is on Thursday - having overcome Spartak Moscow on a penalty shoot-out following a pulsating clash at Parkhead. The Bhoys are now 101.00 with Ladbrokes.

The Hoops took a 2-1 aggregate lead when Scott McDonald stabbed home but just before the break Pavluchenko levelled the matters, ultimately forcing the game into extra-time and then penalties. But Artur Boruc was the hero, saving two spot kicks to send Gordon Strachan's men through.

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On Tuesday night Liverpool thrashed Toulouse 4-0 to progress through their qualifying tie 5-0 on aggregate and they're now available at 13.00 with Bet365 ahead of Thursday's draw to go one better than last year and lift the trophy.

Rangers edged past Crvena Zvezda 1-0 on aggregate following a tense goalless draw at the Marakana Stadium and they can be backed at a general price of 100/1 with most bookies but 126.00 with Bet365

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Of course the leading candidates all automatically qualified for the group stages Manchester United and Chelsea were automatically in the hat for the group stages with Barcelona the favourites.

TOP SIX SIDES :
Barcelona are 6.00 at PaddyPower
Chelsea are 7.50 at Bet365
Manchester United are 7.50 at Bet365
AC Milan are 11.00 at Bet365
Inter Milan are 11.00 at Paddy Power
Real Madrid are 11.00 at Bet365

OF course you can always get the latest live prices for the UEFA Champions League at our partner site at Bookielabrat.com

Monday, August 27, 2007

CHELSEA CLEAR FAVOURITES FOR TITLE


Manchester United may have finally won a league game - but Chelsea are still clear favourites at the bookmakers to win the English Premier league title.

Chelsea are at a best priced 2.20 at BetFred to win the title - with Manchester United second favourites at 3.75 at Bet365 after their poor start to the season which leaves them five points behind the Blues.

The Red Devils are also a couple of points behind Liverpool and Arsenal despite having played a game more.

Liverpool are considered 3rd favourite with Ladbrokes offering a big 4.50 on the Reds, while Arsenal are considered the longest shots of the "big four" at 9.00 - also at Ladbrokes.

If you are looking for a fairytale season from someone outside this group then you can get huge prices with Spurs at 151.00 (PaddyPower), Newcastle at 201.00 (PaddyPower) and Manchester City at 301.00 (BetFred)

RELATED LINKS :
As always you can read our English Football betting previews up on the main Gambling Guide site.

And you can find the lastest odds and prices on all the English Premier league betting lines at Bookielabrat.com.

Derby favourites for Relegation

Relegation already looming for some teams
Derby County are now favourites to be relegated with the bookmakers following the latest action in the Premier League.

The Rams' winless start to the season continued as they were beaten 2-1 at home by fellow promoted side Birmingham on Saturday, and are a best price of just 1.22 at PaddyPower

The significance of that defeat is underlined by the fact that Birmingham City are the second favourites for the drop at 2.20 at Bet365

Meanwhile Fulham @ 2.88 at Bet365 and Wigan & 2.88 at PaddyPower are favoured to battle it out for the 3rd relegation spot.

Things are slightly better for Bolton who are out to 3.50 after Sammy Lee's side got off the mark with a 3-0 success over injury-hit Reading - and Sunderland are at 4.00 (at BetFred) after losing 0-2 at home to Liverpool.

RELATED LINK :
Latest Premier League odds - outrights, relegation, matches

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Weekend Football Speadsheets Online

Gooners prediction spreadsheets
The latest prediction spreadsheets for England, Germany and Italy are online in the Best of the Bets Forum.

Check out the forum for the threads where the sheets are posted along with some pointers on the best betting options and a couple of betting systems.

Direct links :
- The Sheet -> Italy - 25/26 August
- The Sheet-> England 25/26 August
- The Sheet -> German Bundesliga 24/26 August

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Real Madrid raid for Robben and Heinz !!

Real Madrid have been busy in midweek while fans and players have been focusing on the international scene - swooping for two major signings.

Heinze signs for Madrid
Manchester United defender Gabriel Heinze has agreed to join Real Madrid according to a statement on the Real Madrid website, which has been confirmed by Man Utd. It said the clubs had agreed a fee and Heinze will sign a four-year contract.

Heinze will undergo a medical in Madrid before completing the move which will see him replace veteran Brazilian Roberto Carlos, who left the Bernabeu in the summer.

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Arjen Robbin signs for Real Madrid
Meanwhile Arjen Robben is poised to complete a move to Real Madrid after the Spanish champions agreed a fee with Chelsea. Chelsea announced that the transfer had been settled subject to the Dutchman agreeing personal terms on a five-year deal and passing a medical.

The transfer fee is thought to be in the region of £21m.

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Real Madrid completed a busy day by agreeing to the sale of Cicinho to Italian club AS Roma. They're determined to defend their La Liga title.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Heinze still stuck at Old Trafford

Manchester United's Gabriel Heinze has lost his attempt to force the club to allow him to move to rivals Liverpool.

Heinze said the Red Devils gave him written permission to pursue a transfer to another club for a fee of £6.8m but ManYoo disputed this.

A Premier League arbitration panel concluded that the permission "was unambiguous in that it envisages only an international transfer".

The defender is set to appeal against the panel's decision. United will have 14 days to respond and, with the transfer window scheduled to shut on 31 August, Heinze is short of time if he wants to leave Old Trafford.

But his solicitor Richard Green says the Argentine could still join Liverpool after that date using Rule M4, which allows the Premier League discretion to grant a transfer outside the window.

United manager Sir Alex Ferguson and chief executive David Gill travelled to Monday's hearing in London to put their case and will be happy with the verdict.

I don't really understand Manchester United's approach to this - they've obviously got a player who doesn't want to be there anymore - and indeed Ferguson shows no inclination to want to include Heinze in his match day squads.

I know that transfers between the Liverpoll and United are rare (the last first-team player to move from United to Liverpool was Phil Chisnall in 1964) but the club approach here seems wrong - given that the requested fee has been meet.

It seems like a bloody minded approach, and one that does smack of restraint of trade - or attempting to keep the best players away from your rivals. If you are not gonig to use a player then he should be able to leave - as long as reasonable financial demands have been met.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Centrebet offering new punters a FREE shirt

A heads-up for UK and European football punters - you do NOT need to fork out 30 quid on the latest club shirt - if you're prepared to try out a new bookmaker.


GET A FREE TEAM SHIRT BY PLACING AN ANTE POST BET


We've knocked up a page on the main site if you want to know a bit more :
CentreBet Free Shirt Offer

and you can check the detailed bookmaker review here :
CentreBet Bookmaker review

Or you can check them out now bt using the special :
CentreBet Free shirt Beer link
Beer

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Win VIP Sporting Packages playing Poker !

The guys at PokerLabrat.com have found a poker tournament that might just interest me.

Doyles Room (the poker site fronted by poker legend Doyle Brunson) is running a series of tournaments where the prize is VIP packages to 3 amazing sporting events.

1. THE VIP NHL PACKAGE TOURNAMENT
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On September 29 & 30 the Anaheim Ducks show off the Stanley Cup in England when they open the NHL's 90th season and begin the defense of their first championship at the O2 Arena in London against Los Angeles Kings. This also marks the first time a regular-season NHL game has ever been played on European ice.

2. THE VIP UFC PACKAGE TOURNAMENT
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After an absence of over five years the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) organization is back in London at the new O2 Arena this 8th and 9th of September.

3. THE VIP NBA PACKAGE TOURNAMENT
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The Boston Celtics and the Minnesota Timberwolves will play in the first basketball game in the O2, London's new state of the art NBA style arena.

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You get travel, 2 nights accomdation, spending money, the full VIP package - and you can win these packages starting from pretty basic buy-in of $5.00 or more.

Check out all the details in the Poker LabRat Blog Post where they go over the offer in more detail.

We've reviewed Doyles Poker Room on the Gooners main site - and our own "Gambling Gal" Elle reckons they're a pretty good microgaming skin.

So if you've got a bit of a poker game and fancy being treat like a VIP - then visit Join Doyle Brunson's Poker Site to win

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Fantasy Football - almost completely pointless ?

... and that's not just describing the state of my entries - but almost.
;-)

These four geeks are probably kicking my butt
A new football season started this week - but not just on the pitch - as throughout the globe an army of pencil pushing, spreadsheet code, FIFA 2007 playing, spotty faced nerds have begun battle in the various fantasy football competitions.

It's an almost futile endeavour for the casual participant, as you have absolutely no chance of keeping up with who is playing or injured in your own REAL life club, and main rivals, let alone all the minor players that you're forced to buy in order to fit under the "salary cap".

This season I've declined almost every invitation for competitions and leagues, but still find myself playing in two fantasy football comps, a tipping league, and an NFL fantasy comp over at bodog (that one I'm actually looking forward too).

I have no real idea where the sites are (I've bookmarked them somewhere), what the rules are, or how often you are supposed to update these things, and I suspect that my SPAM filter greedily chews up all the reminder emails that were going to be sent out.

So after a week of competiton I am rock bottom of an 8 team league in one competiton (after only 6 of my team actually turned up to play on opening weekend) although I was surprised to see that was still the 32nd percentile overall ...

Does that mean that 31% of teams actually did worse than I did?! Ddi their managers die before submitting a team?

And in the other competitino my mid-week performance was a shocking 18 points after I didn't bother to swap out all my Arsenal and Liverpool players - I think you get unlimited transfers in this comp - although staggeringly that still left me in about 238,000 place from 1.2 million entrants ?!!
Oh no - who has Gooner selected this week ?!
Come on guys - don't tell me that you've abandoned your teams already ... Oh - whats that? You have - and you're still beating me?

Yup. Pointless.
;-)

UEFA CL : Sparta Prague 0-2 Arsenal

Arsenal moved a step closer to the lucrative group stages of the Champions League with a 2-0 away victory over Sparta Prague tonight.

On the ground where former captain Thierry Henry had become the club's all-time record goalscorer two season ago, the next generation of young Gunners looked to begin writing a new chapter.

And it was a hard-fought victory - courtesy of goals from Cesc Fabregas and Alexander Hleb, in stoppage time - on a humid night, overcoming tough opponents and a partisan crown at the AXA Stadium.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Midweek football - a chance to atone?

The first few weeks of the new season are always full on and for a couple of sides (Tottenham and ManYoo) the midweek series of domestic league fixtures gives tem an early chance to atone for weekend disappointment.

See our English football previews page for more.

WE also have the hugely important 3rd qualifying round of the champinos League, and there is as much as Euro 20m at stake for Liverpool and Arsenal as they strive to reeach the lucrative Group stages.

See the UEFA Champions League preview page on the main site for tips and picks now.

EPL : 12th Aug 2007 : Arsenal 2-1 Fulham

It's 3 mins 45 secs long and has al lthree goals.

The commentary is in arabic ...
But don't turn it down - the guy goes mental when Hleb gets the winner ..



I reckon he's my favourite football commentator now ...

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Can you feel the tension midweek ?

Here we are on Wednesday afternoon - and I'm knee-deep in computer code and related work tasks which is probably just as well or else I'd be wasting all my time thinking about Arsenal Football Club and the start of the season.

They've got Fulham at the Emirates this weekend - a match that usually suits Arsenal well enough and I've opened my English Premier League previews for the weekend with a pick for a 3-1 win to the Gunners.

The team are talking the talk - well Robin Van Persie and William Gallas mostly - and Wenger has also chimed in saying that they want to put a better title challenge together - and to my mind that must mean focusing on getting maximum points for the season opening game at home.

We will see - but I am looking forward to the game - nervously like almost every fan - but with expectations of an improved showing this season.

I notice there is a bit of Sunderland baiting going on in the forum - mainly from Newcastle fans ... ;-) ... and also a bit of optimism from Spurs and Birmingham fans looking for their team to suprise the critics.

As far as the site previews go, we will sit down on Thursday evening and do the research and post a few more previews and we should have 5-6 there ready for Friday morning with all the odds for you to check out over morning tea.

Right I'd better get on with some paying work - catch ya later.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Community Shield : United win on pens

Well - that was actually quite a good game wasn't it?

Perhaps it was because the Community Shield doesn't really matter - or perhaps it was simply because both sides are better when they're attacking - but I cannot be the only one thinking that was the first time in a long while that a Chelsea v ManYoo game has lived up to the pre-match hype.

I know it only finished 1-1 - but both sides showed a willingness to try things - and that game was certainly a step up on the cup final. I've seen that the mainstream media have not been too impressed with it all and I do wonder if they were watching the football or boozing at the bar.

United seemed to have a better shape about them despite not having Anderson, Owen Hargreaves and Carlos Tevez in the side - and Ryan Giggs still has his spark. Rooney was argumentitive and Ronaldo - well he certainly likes a stepover or six ...

Still there is little doubt United were the dominant side - mind you Chelsea were missing John Terry, Didier Drogba, Claude Makelele, Salomon Kalou, Michael Ballack, Andriy Shevchenko, Wayne Bridge and Paolo Ferreira who were all out of the squad.

With that in mind probably the scariest thing for the other 18 teams in the Premier League was that this match showed the strength in depth of both of these clubs - I'd fear to think what Arsenal's team would be like with 8 injuries.

Just 6 days to go until the English Premier league season kicks off then - how's your team looking?

Thursday, August 02, 2007

bet365 offer a GBP 200 free bet until Saturday!

A GLORIOUS £200 FREE BET - PLUS BEST ODDS GUARANTEED ON EVERY RACE!

If you haven't already got a bet365 account, there's no excuse not to register this week as the bet365 team is running their most generous free bet offering to date.

Open a bet365 account before midnight, Saturday 4th August and place a qualifying bet on the same day. You will then be entitled to a free bet to the same stake (up to £200) on a sporting market of your choice.

Click here to register for your £200 Free Bet.

If that wasn't enough, bet365 are also committed to offering Best Odds Guaranteed on every horse race. Take a board price or an early price and, if the SP is bigger, they'll pay you out at the bigger odds instead!

Click here to enjoy Best Odds Guaranteed and a fantastic £200 free bet.