European Football Tips: Cross game card double
This week's selections come via Spain and Germany. With the refereeing appointments and the fixtures lending themselves to cards I have two fancies at odds of 4/1 and 7/1, you can also combine the pair at 36.5/1 if you fancy something a bit chunkier!
First on the agenda is Sevilla’s clash with Barcelona at 15:15 on Saturday afternoon at the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan Stadium. Neither side has any fresh injury concerns to contend with and both appear to have put their disappointing Champions League results behind. Sevilla have collected three points from a possible three and Barcelona have taken four from six since. Despite only sitting two points behind Barcelona in the league proceedings and playing at home, Sevilla are not the favourites here priced at 11/5. However, this price may represent value as the hosts have won 53% of their games when priced accordingly. Barcelona, on the other hand, have only won 26% of their games when priced at 6/5.
My next selection comes courtesy of Bundesliga’s clash between RB Leipzig and Borussia Mönchengladbach on Saturday evening. These sides come into this one in contrasting form. The hosts have managed to reduce the gap to two points on leaders Bayern Munich having won five of their last six league games while the visitors haven’t won any of their last four. Marco Rose will be desperate to get a result here but will be without key man Jonas Hofmann who was forced off with an injury late on vs Man City in the UCL midweek.
Betfair have priced 41 players for a card in this fixture with just under 75% at 7/2 or shorter. Therefore, I was surprised to see Ivan Rakitic- who has accumulated five cards in La Liga this season- towards the bottom of the scale.
For Sevilla this season, only Nemanja Gudelj (six) has received more cautious than ex-Barcelona midfielder Rakitic. In terms of defensive output, he is slightly above average as he averages 1.1 tackles, 0.7 interceptions and 1.1 fouls per game. More importantly though he will be covering Messi- who has been playing centrally recently- on Saturday afternoon and the Argentine forward has drawn an average of 2.4 fouls per game this season.
The last six head to heads between these sides have seen 30Y and 2R cards brandished as Sevilla have averaged 3.2 cards per game. Although Rakitic has started the last two games against his former club and avoided a booking, at least one of Sevilla’s central midfielders has been carded in each of these sides' last three meetings.
The referee for this clash is Alejandro José Hernández Hernández and in La Liga this season he has awarded an average of 4.91 cards per game. In his last five games he has dished out 28 yellow cards!
Julian Nagelsmann is a difficult man to try and second guess but I’m hoping he will play Lukas Klostermann at RCB when his side lock horns with Borussia M’gladbach at 17:30 on Saturday evening.
Klostermann has a healthy record for cards, receiving two in seven Bundesliga starts this campaign. However, this bet is all about who he will be trying to contain at the Red Bull Arena; Marcus Thuram.
The bullish French attacker has drawn a card from five of his six direct opponents in the domestic games he has started in on the wing! Only Wolfsburg’s Ridle Baku avoided a card when tasked with marking Thuram.
When M’Gladbach played Hoffenhiem both the right back and right sided CDM were booked as Thuram drew seven fouls vs them. This was also the case vs Leverkusen (RB and RCM booked) and when Die Fohlen faced Koln, both the right sided centre back and the right wing back were cautioned! Schalke and Union Berlin’s right backs were also booked.
With Klostermann’s poor disciplinary record and Thuram’s knack for drawing cards, William Hill's price of 7/1 for a Klostermann caution is simply too long!
For a long-shot you can combine these two selections at odds of 36.5/1 with Betfair, the same double is only 16/1 with Bet365!
If you are backing any of these selections best of luck and please remember to gamble responsibly!
