Enthused by last week’s “Fantasy Flutter” haul thanks to the magnificent brace from Scout Pick Daniel Sturridge, it’s time to darken Paddy Power’s door once again, brandishing a freshly earned tenner with an unmistakable air of smugness about us. Who says the bookies always win?
So with Sturridge coming in for us last weekend, we’d be mad not to look for a similar bet and back a couple of strikers. Everton’s Jermaine Beckford and West Ham’s Demba Ba are names that have been hovering around our Scout Pick reckoning all week, so we went to Paddy to fetch some exclusive specials on that front pairing.
We can get odds of 8/1 on Beckford to fire a brace against Blackburn at Goodison this weekend, while Ba is at 9/1 to inflict similar damage to Villa’s defence. We’ll dip into both of those with a quid on each.
Robin Van Persie is of course the other striker in our Scout Picks this week – that was pretty inevitable given his double fixture against Liverpool and Spurs in the gameweek. While the Dutchman is at short odds to score in those games, we went to Paddy for a double gameweek combination. They’ve come back with odds of 9/2 on Van Persie to score anytime against both Liverpool and Spurs. Such is his strike rate this season, we will confidently slap down another two quid on that one.
While we’re showing confidence in that trio strikers, we’ve happily turned out backs on the Fantasy prospects of Fernando Torres, despite the double fixture for Chelsea within the gameweek. What chance of El Nino drawing a blank against both West Brom and Birmingham we asked? Paddy came back with 5/4 on another couple of blanks for Chelsea’s £50 million man – that might be worth a couple of quid for giggles, but we’ve got other targets in mind for our remaining funds.
We switch our sights to the Scout Picks midfield and, while we’ve backed Van Persie to score in both the gameweek 33 fixtures, what price Cesc Fabregas to do the same? Paddy have handed us 12/1 on the Gunners skipper to notch in those games – we’ll have another tentative punt on that.
Charlie Adam is alongside the Arsenal man in our Scout Picks midfield and will surely be a key threat to Wigan in a must win encounter for both sides at Bloomfield Road. Paddy are offering 5/1 on Adam to notch from the spot in that game, with 5/2 on a goal from open play. We will take those odds on a penalty kick given what’s at stake against the Latics.
Our final midfield flutter lands at the feet of Birmingham’s double gameweek prospect Craig Gardner. Joint top scorer with Nikola Zigic on 8 goals this term and likely to be lining up spot-kicks, Gardner looks a very decent option. Paddy have come up with 10/3 on an anytime goal against Sunderland – we’ll slap our biggest stake on this one – £3 goes the way of Gardner to score this weekend in our “Flutter of the Week.”
As always, our final bet goes on our Clean Sheet Accumulator. With just a solitary pound remaining, it goes on shutouts for Everton (vs Blackburn), Birmingham (vs Sunderland) and Chelsea (vs West Brom) this weekend. If you want to back your Chelsea defensive acquisition individually, Paddy are also offering 11/4 on Carlo Ancelotti’s side to claim two clean sheets over the gameweek.
That’s our tenner spent once again then – thrown in Paddy’s direction with a certain swagger after last week’s victory. Fetch profit again this week and we even might let Granville “go large” with his drive thru. Good luck to all our fellow flutterers for the weekend.
A reminder that Paddy Power are still offering £20 of bets for free for those who sign-up and bet a tenner. Click here to get involved.
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