A big National Hunt meeting, a revitalised Manchester City and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers carry our few quid this week.
After another week of near misses (South Africa just failed to cover, one goal short in Man City/Spurs) we try once again to boost our Christmas fund with some sporting punts.
With the National Hunt season kicking off in earnest this week at Cheltenham, and with lots of other sport on, we were spoiled for choice but we narrowed it down to these three, which should net a combined 14/1 as a treble.
Tampa Bay Bucs (-1) to beat Carolina Panthers, 10/11
You don’t need to know much about the NFL to read a form line. The Panthers have won once in their last seven games and their season is already over. The Bucs are the rising team in the league, with four wins, and a tight loss to New Orleans, in their last five.
Quarterback Josh Freeman is looking like the real deal at last and the Bucs have the best rush defence in the game, negating the biggest threat the Panthers have, the running ability of their QB Cam Newton. The game is at Carolina but with the handicap this low you’re essentially betting on a Tampa win. And Tampa will win.
Grands Crus to win the Paddy Power Gold Cup, 9/4
The grey returns to the site of his disappointing RSA Chase run at the Festival last season but we haven’t lost faith in David Pipe’s seven-year-old.
Facing a field packed with big names (Poquelin, Al Ferof, Hunt Ball, Forpadydeplasterer) Grands Crus should still be the classiest of the class acts. Jockey Tom Scudamore believes the horse is back to the form that saw him win the Feltham Chase last December at Kempton in some style and that’s good enough for us.
Manchester City to win both halves against Aston Villa, 7/5
With David Silva now back in the fold we expect Manchester City to resemble the team that won the title last season again. The Spaniard’s skill and trickery was the key to undoing Spurs last week and Aston Villa are nowhere near as good as AVB’s side.
Last week Stephen Ireland negated Paul Scholes for a while, allowing Villa to get a foothold they ultimately couldn’t hold on to. We don’t expect Villa to repeat the trick and if Edin Dzeko starts, as he must at this stage, we can see the Bosnian winning this bet for us on his own.
Add in Carlos Tevez (who is overdue a goal and missed the internationals this week), and Sergio Aguero and City have too much firepower.
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