Motherwell vs Rangers Tips: Tony Watt to find the net against Gerrard's men

Gameweek 12 in the Scottish Premiership concludes at Fir Park as Motherwell welcome Rangers. 

The Gers sit top of the pile - on 24 points - going into the weekend but with rivals Celtic in action on Saturday, Steven Gerrard's side could find themselves one point off the pace come their kickoff at midday on Sunday. 

Despite dropping points to Aberdeen on Wednesday, Gerrard will take plenty of encouragement from the resilience his side showed to come back from two early goals to secure a point in a game that unsurprisingly had a bit of needle as it featured Scott Brown and Alfredo Morelos, both of which scored

El Buffalo has been in fine fettle as of late, bagging his 99th, 100th and 101st Rangers goals in his last four domestic appearances. He is expected to spearhead their attack here, flanked by Ianis Hagi and Kemar Roofer in an unnamed front three. Elsewhere, Ryan Jack could be back in to start here as he edges back to full fitness. 

There are no fresh injury concerns for the hosts, therefore, the only changes Graham Alexander will make will be tactical, and he might be tempted to shuffle his deck given the  fact that his side have not won in four games. 

Only Celtic (26) have scored more domestic goals then Rangers’ 19 this campaign and with them conceding nine goals in their last nine games bet365’s price of 1/1 for both teams to score here certainly appeals. 

Gerrard’s side title campaign last season was built on a solid defensive foundation epitomized by the fact that they only conceded an average of 0.30 goals per game. However, the Gers are only eleven games into this current season and have already shipped as many goals as they did in the entirety of last (10) in a third of the game time! Both teams have scored in 78% of their last nine league games. 

As for the hosts Motherwell, they have only kept two clean sheets all season as both teams have scored in just under 2/3 of their matches with each game averaging 2.63 goals per game. The hosts have only failed to find the net in one of their games at Fir Park this season, vs Celtic, so given Rangers defensive difficulties, I like the look of BTTS here and will be having three points on this angle. 

Tony Watt is enjoying a fine start to the campaign. He has scored seven in eleven league appearances, that is a total only matched by Hibernian’s Martin Boyle and a goals per 90 average of 0.70 which is only bested by Celtic’s Kyogo Furuhashi (0.79). 

Watt tops his sides charts for shots per game averaging 2.10 and took their most recent penalty as he scored a brace in their 2-2 draw at home to St Mirren. 

Given his form and the fact that his side are at home, I think Unibets price of 18/5 for him to find the net is a little generous especially considering he is as short as 12/5 with Bet365. 

On a personal note, I think Watt’s ties to Celtic bode well for this angle as the frontman will be keen to get one over his old rivals. 

Nick Walsh has the whistle for this one, he has averaged 4.80 cards per game in the Scottish top flight this season which is slightly up on his career average for this division of 3.80. Nevertheless, these sides' most recent meeting threw up a few cards and I think there’s a price worth pursuing here. 

Liam Kelly, Motherwell’s goalkeeper, is 18/1 with Bet365. The shot stopper has a card per 90 average of 0.09 in this division which would make any price of 11/1 upwards value for me. In a frustrating campaign, he has already picked up three bookings. The first was for abusing the referee- I think- after his side conceded a penalty for handball and the other two were for time wasting. Peculiarly, his most recent one came in the 83rd minute after his side conceded their second which is odd because they were 2-0 up. 

If you want to be greedy you can combine this with Motherwell to avoid defeat at 56/1 using Bet365’s ‘Bet Builder’ or you can take the single inplay and whilst the price will likely increase throughout the game you run the risk of Motherwell going ahead and shortening significantly. This is why I would have a point pre kick off and then go back, result permitting. 

Best of luck if you are backing any of these selections and please remember to gamble responsibly.