Fulham v Newcastle United
Saturday 21 January 2012 3pm
With a recent record of 4 wins out of 5 matches in all competitions and 3 clean sheets in the last 4 league matches, United can travel to the capital full of confidence, especially with the massive boost that we will now have TWO Dembas returning from the African Cup of Nations.
This is always a tricky match but a quick look at the facts leaves me a bit baffled as to how our friends at BET365 have arrived at their prices, which is good news!
Fulham have a home record which reads won 4, lost 4, drawn 3 and Newcastle United’s return on their travels is exactly the same. Even on the goals front there is next to nothing to choose between the two teams, the home side scoring 16 and conceding 15, while in their ten away matches United have both scored and conceded 14.
Call me simple but those statistics would surely suggest to me that by far the most likely result is a draw?
Yes we have players missing due to injury and international commitments but this group of players have shown a resilience that has proved very hard to beat, plus with clean sheets back in fashion you’d hope Newcastle will once again prove very hard to break down.
The prices at BET365 to win have Fulham at 1/1(Evens) and Newcastle at 3/1, making the undoubted value and our first tip, Newcastle to take the 3 points. Being a little more greedy we are also tipping United to win the match and keep a clean sheet which pays 6-1.
Our final suggestion is once again Jonas to score the first goal, which this time is an attractive 22-1. We all know he has never been a prolific goalscorer but has scored a couple of vital goals already this season and Alan Pardew has definitely improved his goal threat with Gutierrez now regularly getting into the box and prepared to have a go at goal in open play.
Having added another massive goal threat to the squad we can really look ahead to February and the African cavalry return, what our aspirations are then will massively depend on what results our depleted squad can grind out in the meantime.
The run-in starts on Saturday.
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