Disaster looms for Dunne after O’Neill hails him as the real deal

It’s a funny, though probably not that surprising, thing that last night’s wins were my first since the time a couple of weeks back that I noted what a good run I was on. In the days since, I blew about half of my accumulated winnings and while I was obviously partly to blame, I’m still looking for someone to explain to me how Sheffield United didn’t manage so much as a draw at Watford a week or so ago.

 

In any case, the point is (and I’ve actually known this for a long time) you should never tempt fate in this game and so I’m more than a little alarmed by Martin O’Neill’s observation that Richard Dunne is a candidate for the Player of the Year awards on the basis of his performances for Aston Villa so far this season.

 

It’s not that I necessarily disagree, you understand; just that I was planning to put a few quid on Villa to get some sort of result out of the United game this evening and now I’m far more nervous about the whole thing.

 

Villa have generally done well against the other big sides and while Wayne Rooney is on quite a roll (there, that’s him jinxed) they’ll have their work cut out tonight, not least because they tend not to score enough these days to leave much scope for error at the back.

 

Anyway, I’ve decided to plough on with the wager and I’m partnering Villa with Blackburn to beat Hull City at home. I was really annoyed with myself for not having Fulham to beat Burnley last night and while Rovers aren’t anything like the bankers at home that the Londoners are they have shown signs of improvement at Ewood Park of late. Hull, meanwhile, are not quite so poor on the road as Burnley, but they certainly couldn’t be said to travel well and I’m hoping this is not their night.

 

For my other double I’m taking Chelsea to win at Everton almost purely on the basis that I think at some stage they have to string a few wins together if they are serious about winning the title. David Moyes’ side are hard to beat these days and can always score when Louis Saha is fit but the win over Arsenal at the weekend really should be a springboard for better things by Chelsea who also own Everton from earlier in the season.

 

My fear is that Arsenal will beat Liverpool in the last of my games but I’ve actually concluded that Liverpool are the better bet with even a draw yielding fractionally better than 4/6 on a side who have been regaining a bit of confidence lately.

 

I had a chat with a mate about Arsene Wenger’s side a couple of weeks ago when we were speculating on how many points they might take from the four big matches they had coming up. So far, it’s one from three and, most remarkably, the Frenchman has even stopped talking his own players up. Well, that’s something going for then.

 

Bets

 

€25 double on Villa (+0.5) to beat United and Blackburn (-0.5) to beat Hull @ 3.72.

 

€25 double on Liverpool (0/+0.5) to beat Arsenal and Chelsea (-0.5/-1) to beat Everton @ 4.39.

Categories: Soccer