Premiership - Arsenal v Blackburn

11 February 2008

Preview By Tipster CYellow (England)

Its been a long while since i produced a regular set of tips here, in my personal life it has just been a hectic time the facts of which i will not bore you to tears with.

Arsenal vs Blackburn Rovers

My first thoughts as i approached a bet on tonights game was the approach of the two teams. I associate Blackburn with thunderous tackling, 100% commitment and not too pretty football (apologies to Rovers fans but with my own club on a decent run i feel i have the right to taunt for a few weeks ok!)

Arsenal meanwhile continue their brand of total football and are without doubt a very pretty side to watch. With Liverpool, Chelsea and United all not winning this weekend Arsenal will be well aware this represents a real chance to open a bit of a lead at the top of the table.

However regular readers will be well aware i do not see much value in backing huge odds on shots (especially in something like a football match between 2 league sides) and so i have turned my attention to another market.

That market is the bookings index. 10 points for a yellow card, 25 points for a red.

The first thing we need to look at is the line. Typically for a Blackburn game it is set nice and high with the over/under set at 40.5. As Jumbo pointed out on one of his previews the other day there is often value built in backing the underdog with most people just punting on the favourite to win big and failing to see the upset. This will see many people tonight for example backing Arsenal to win on the handicaps.

40.5 is very high. Why? Well only one Premiership referee averages over 40 points per game, Mike Dean at 45.0. Next in the table is only just over 37. Tonights referee is Steve Bennett. In 20 matches this season he has issued 56 yellows, 3 reds which gives him an average of 31.75 points per game (way under tonights line). Steve Bennett tends to try and let the game flow and doesnt issue too many yellow cards early which is good for us as it doesnt force him to produce reds later in the game.

Blackburn do average a lot of bookings per game, 51 thru 25 games. Only Boro have more. Meanwhile Arsenal are one of the leagues better teams for picking up yellows with just 39 in their 25 league games. Again if you do the maths here it works out on average under 40 even taking into account the red cards both sides have collected.

Now another reason to like unders tonight, David Dunn, Morten Gamst Pederson and Christopher Samba are all suspended tonight for having too many yellow cards! Ryan Nelson has a hamstring injury that looks like keeping him out too. So that removes 4 of Rovers card collectors fromt he pitch tonight. If you consider Dunn, Nelson and Samba individually sit in the top 10 of the bad boys table (points for yellows/reds) for the entire league this is a huge plus.

For Arsenal only Cesc Fabregas and Mathieu Flamini collect cards with any sort of regularity and both will likely play tonight.

The reverse fixture back in August produced 8 yellow cards. 4 of those players will not be playing tonight (Samba, Nelson remember them? Savage and Van Persie). Robbie Savage is such a wind up merchant that any game he plays in ends up with an artificially high total and he will not be playing tonight since he is now playing for Derby County.

So having looked at the players and the referee which is pretty much all we have to go on, everything suggests we will not see a high total tonight. Clearly a red card for a handball or bringing a player down thru on goal will see this bet a loser. These are the intangibles it is almost impossible to calculate into a bet such as this. However 4 bookings or less to me seems to be the bet to go for.

Its my personal belief that without the more explosive elements on the pitch for Blackburn we will see a low cards game tonight.

Keep stakes sensibly low, certainly not a bet to go mad on.

Rules of bet:

Yellow card 10 Points

Red card 25 Points.

Max total for any one player = 35 points (ie yellow, yellow and red does not equal 45).