The Championship - 11th & 12th January Part1

I'm glad that the FA Cup is over and I can get back to making some money. I'm going to try and start getting some of my work up earlier as I want to get more involved in the early markets, I feel there is more value to be had here. I start looking at the next set of fixtures as soon as one round has finished so I'm not really changing anything. The intention is to not only look for bets that will win but ones that will shorten on the Friday/Saturday when the liquidity in the markets increases.

Burnley v Crystal Palace

In the last round of fixtures I took on Burnley at Sheffield Wednesday due to Charlie Austin being out. Burnley won that game due to a 25 yard strike and a penalty. They then went to Barnsley in the FA Cup, again Charlie Austin was missing, however this time they lost 1-0. I'm still of the belief that without their top goal-scorer they have to be taken on. Austin reached the 20 goal mark on November 6th, but since then has netted 3 times in 10 games. So even if he does start then his form isn't that much of a concern to me with this bet.

If Charlie Austin doesn't play or you can keep him quiet then it's likely you can win the game with a single goal. Seeing as Palace have scored in all but one league game this season and are also the divisions top scorers, I fancy them to score here. Burnley do have the 5th best defence in the league and have kept clean sheets in 38% of their home games. I would make Palace about 1.34 to score in this match. Palace have also taken the lead in their last 7 league games and if they take the lead here I don't feel that Burnley will trouble them unless Charlie Austin is playing. Taking this into account I would have Palace priced at around the 2.6x mark.

Watford were priced at 2.87 when they visited Turf Moor, Wolves were around 2.80 and Leicester were 2.30. The league table shows that Palace are ahead of these sides and have been for a while now (see above table). All of this points to Palace being the value bet.

Back Crystal Palace at 2.8x - Betfair


Cardiff City v Ipswich Town

It may seem strange that I'm taking on a side who have won 12 and lost 1 of their 13 home games and sit 7 points clear at the top of the table. However reading into their recent fixtures they've had a bit of luck on their side. I personally think that Cardiff have the best squad in the league and feel that they will go up more by grinding results out than being overly impressive. In their last 10 games they've only won of their last 14 games by more than 1 goal.

Ipswich come here in relatively good form, they sit 7th in the 6th game form table with 3 wins, 1 draw and 2 defeats. They have added some really good players to their squad in this transfer window with McLean and McGoldirck. Defensively they still have a few issues but they are slowly improving in that department, I can't see them conceding 5 or 6 in  this match.

My personal opinion on this league is than no team should be priced below 1.66 that's about the right price on Cardiff due to their home form, squad depth and current league positions of the two sides. However if the league season was to start again now knowing what we know from the last month I would have them priced at 1.9x, due to the improvement that Ipswich have shown. Therefore the true price for this game should be somewhere around the 1.80 mark.

Lay Cardiff at 1.6x - Betfair