All quiet on the Western front

Not much to report from my betting blog, as it was a very quiet week on the Star Sports front, with the turf racing programme virtually left blank and all-weather fodder to keep the show on the road.

Monday wasn’t too bad with a couple of big bets on well-backed horses at Wolves with Red Shuffle at 8/13 and Face Value at 6/4 being costly beaten favourites for our punters. On the following day, though, Tricksofthetrade landed a £10k Each Way wager at 5/1.

Wednesday, though, saw a very well backed handicapper on the all-weather in Silver Linnet. John Butler’s charge (who trains at Barney Curley’s old yard, so might know a few tricks of the trade) was backed from a morning 4/1 into 15/8. In true all-weather fashion a few of the jockeys still seemed on the M25 as Adam Kirby got an uncontested 5 length lead which he managed to hold onto – definitely one for the punters.

Very little else on the racing front, so it was football that kept the show running, Monday’s game between Liverpool and Spurs looked like being on paper a very attractive game and punters couldn’t really decide, though we did see an Even £50k Liverpool; Spurs and the draw also saw plenty of supporters, Of course as soon as you expect a game with goals you know it’s going to end 0-0.

Football in foreign lands caught our punters imagination later in the week with two ‘Coppa Italia’ games. Both of these saw us come out on top, with AC Milan getting beat by Juventus and Sienna turning over Napoli, also an Asian Handicap bet on Hearts +1 v Celtic being swept away.

Not much else football wise to report, until Saturday when Man Utd drifted to a very backable even money v Liverpool and the punters stepped in. Wagers of £60k and £20k were recorded with not much in reply and we started the weekend on the back foot, not helped after Norwich came from a goal down v Swansea to land a sizable Asian handicap bet.

Obviously a couple of football stories dominate the week – Fabio Cappello leaving (or being pushed) from the England job and the Suarez non-handshake at Old Trafford.

As my colleague Luke has said more than once ‘The Sun newspaper pick the England football team!’ so they would more than likely have an outcome on the manager too. As a certain H.Redknapp walked free from Southwark Crown Court this week, he would now seem a certainty for the England job at least from the public point of view, (though I’m not sure too many people along the Hampshire coast would agree).

Of course genial Harry said he had never thought about the England job! Course not Harry, we believe you! Anyway, our esteemed Darts and Golf correspondent Glenn Day decided that Stuart Pearce could be a contender as he seemed a moral to at least get the temporary gig up to the Euros – the 20/1 snapped up was soon 4/1. Personally if Spurs release him and Redknapp decides he wants it the job is his. Mind you the exchange markets should be fun! But don’t forget, Harry cannot use a computer!

Interesting to see Capello though getting a spoof award from an Italian tv station (he seems to like being on those) and having a beaming smile, almost as being away from England and his £6m a year pay packet was enjoyable. Maybe he and the other cash mercenary Eriksson can fight over the job at the multi zillionaire Russian team a million miles from anywhere!

The Suarez incident was also a disgrace. At least the FA did decide on the pre-match handshake, though, unlike when backing down over the Terry/Ferdinand affair. Dagleish in his pre match interview appeared to have Arsene Wegner syndrome in ‘not seeing it!’ Come on , just say it’s got nothing to do with the game and move on.

Sky have made the premier league a circus; to them football only started 17 years ago, managers know this by now, so can surely expect those sorts of questions coming at them. One the other hand Sir Alex, who is the master at dictating what should be said at press interviews came across well. 1-0 to him.

One this I do notice, though, is when showing the mangers’ weekly press conferences on Sky Sports news, why does Ferguson always get shown walking up the stairs with some woman leading the way? He’s been there 20 odd years now; you think he might know the way to the press room! Or do they want to prove even at 70 odd he can still climb a flight of stairs without a Stannah stairlift? (Thora Hird will not be happy!) You never seem to see Tony Pulis or Paul Lambert walking into the press rooms!

Anyway, happy punting and catch you next week.