The surprising masters of the clean sheet and Arsenal's new skipper are just some of Jamie Pacheco's things to look out for.

Youngsters making up for Pogba's absence

It says a lot about Paul Pogba's fall from grace that the news has been a bit quiet about his somewhat mysterious prolonged absence. This is, after all, the one-time most expensive footballer of all time we're talking about here.
It's now four league matches he's missed and the prediction is he won't be back till the beginning of December. It's 5/1 he signs for Real Madrid before the January transfer window closes and 9/1 he's off to Barcelona.
In his absence, the likes of Fred and Andreas Pereira haven't made a particularly great fist of filling that Pogba-shaped hole in midfield. But the same can't be said of Daniel James, playing in a more advanced role, and Scott McTominay in a more withdrawn one.
The former is just 21 and the latter 22 and if over the next few years the club are going to be more like the United under Sir Alex Ferguson in showing faith in youth than the one under Jose Mourinho and Louis van Gaal who preferred tried and trusted expensive imports, those two will surely be a big part of the plan.
Having started the season with three goals in four matches, it's now been 14 matches since James last scored for either club or country but a home match against Brighton could be a good chance to get back to scoring ways. It's 21/10 that he does.

How will Captain Pierre get on?

How else can anyone explain that just a day after I suggested that Unai Emery needed to strip Granit Xhaka of the Arsenal captaincy, he went and did just that? Of course, one can't get them all right and he went with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang rather than Sokratis or David Luiz, who were my fancies.
Joking aside, there's a new skipper in town and it will be interesting to see if this changes anything about the way the team goes about things.
One thing is for sure: Emery needs Aubameyang to be inspired by the captaincy rather than hamstrung by it because he's arguably their most important player. Even the former Dortmund man may not be enough to stop the Gunners from losing at Leicester, who are playing beautifully at the moment. It's 21/20 the Foxes win in the tea-time kick-off on Saturday but that price may well be odds-on by the time the game starts so now is the time to back them.

Son free to carry on

Everyone will be wishing Andre Gomes a speedy recovery from his horrific injury and no-one more so than Heung-min Son, the player at the heart of the unfortunate incident, so visibly distraught in the aftermath of it.
At least the Premier League got things right in concluding that Son's tackle was no worse than dozens of others you'll see on any given weekend and that it was just a freak accident, rather than something violent or malicious. The South Korean's red card has been rescinded and he's free to play against Sheffield United on Saturday.
You can lay Spurs at 1.65 remembering they will have travelled to Belgrade in midweek in the Champions League and given how solid the Blades have been of late, that doesn't look a bad bet.

Watford goalscorers have gone AWOL

When looking to back a potential goalscorer, the research normally starts with looking at who the side's top scorer is, players who have scored plenty of late or at least have scored a few so far this season.
In the case of Watford, no-one comes under any of those categories. That's because not a single player has scored more than one league goal this season making them, unsurprisingly, the only team to boast that most bizarre of records.
But if you're still desperate to go with a Watford goalscorer, you might as well go for Gerard Deulofeu. The former Everton man always looks their most lively player and should carry on being on penalty duty in the absence of Troy Deeney; he took and scored one against Chelsea last weekend.
It's 11/5 he scores and let's face it, he won't get many better opportunities than at home to Norwich.

Kings of the clean sheet

When one thinks of Bournemouth, one tends to think of slick counter-attacking football where Joshua King and Callum Wilson have been two of the most consistent scorers of the last few seasons.
But it's been a very different story of late. Their last three games ended 0-0, 0-0 and 1-0. They've never kept four clean sheets in a row in the Premier League but a trip to Newcastle may see them do just that. Yes, the Magpies got three at West Ham last week but before that it was just two in their previous five.
It's 12/5 the Cherries get that record-breaking fourth shut-out in a row.

0 nhận xét Blogger 0 Facebook

Post a Comment

 
Top