6th-8th Jan: Spanish Cup

[kompressaur]

06 Jan 19:00 Atletico Madrid v Barcelona 3.25 3.25 2.10
07 Jan 20:00 Poli Ejido v Espanyol 3.50 3.10 2.10
07 Jan 20:00 Racing Santander v Valencia 3.00 3.25 2.20
07 Jan 20:00 Real Unión Irún v Real Betis 4.33 3.30 1.80
07 Jan 20:00 Sevilla v D Coruna 1.61 3.50 5.25
07 Jan 20:00 Sporting Gijon v Valladolid 2.37 3.10 2.75
08 Jan 20:00 Mallorca v Almeria 2.00 3.25 3.50
08 Jan 20:00 Osasuna v Athletic Bilbao 2.30 3.10 3.00

Odds from Bet365

Spanish Football - The Daily Punt Betting Forum

[Ajaxhamburg1887]

Atletico - Barca.. I will go at Under 2,5 with quota 2,15@expekt. I think both teams with nice defense and Barca without the best players (Eto,Puyol,Xavi,Marquez,Hleb,Valdes,Gudjohnsen are missing). Moreover it is not a really important game.. the rematch will be in Camp Nou. I expect a balanced game here.. a draw would be okay for Barca.

~Ajax

[rcgills]

Not sure I much like the look of that one, Ajax. Yes, there are quite a few players missing on both sides, but there's still plenty of firepower out there - Forlan, Sinama Pongolle, Simao and Maxi Rodriguez will all start for Atletico, while although Barca's lineup isn't known yet, the likes of Henry, Messi, Bojan and Iniesta are all in the squad, so both teams are more than capable of scoring.

Wouldn't really say Atletico have a nice defence - 26 conceded in 17 league games isn't particularly impressive, in fact it's the joint 6th worst defence in the division. The absence of Puyol will also weaken the Barcelona defence.

Also, the games between these two sides in Madrid do tend to produce a lot of goals - 4-2 last year, 0-6 the year before that, 7 out of the last 10 have gone overs, with 4 of those producing 6 or more goals.

Having said all that, the price on the overs isn't particularly appealing, so I'm unlikely to go with that myself, but if I was forced to choose between overs and unders, with the quality up front that both sides have still got, I'd be on the overs. Good luck with your bet though.

[rcgills]

Poli Ejido v Espanyol @ 3.55 (Betfair) 4pts

Poli Ejido to score v Espanyol @ 1.35 7.5pts
Poli Ejido to score 2 or more v Espanyol @ 3.1 2.5pts (both Sporting Odds)

Two teams with very different momentum here - Poli Ejido 2nd in group 4 of the Segunda B, and have just opened up a 6pt gap over Jaen in 3rd by beating them last weekend. Went through a brief blip at the start of December, losing two in a row (although one was against leaders Cadiz), but they've since bounced back with 2 straight wins either side of the winter break, and those 2 defeats were their only defeats in their last 12.

Espanyol, meanwhile, after winning their first two games of the season, have since won just once in 15 (in the league, although they also beat Celta 3-0 in the Cup).

Poli Ejido have absolutely nothing to fear from this one, having beaten Villarreal 6-1 on aggregate in the previous round, hammering them 5-0 at home and then drawing 1-1 away (and missing a penalty, IIRC).

Ejido have a very strong home record, 7-1-1, and were also reasonably strong at home in the Segunda last season - despite finishing bottom and getting relegated, their home record was still 9-7-5.

Ejido will be missing a couple of defenders, Azcarate and Roberto, plus striker Cañadas, although it seems (although I can't find stats) that only Azcarate is a first teamer. In any case, none of them were available at the weekend against Jaen. Other than that, they're expected to be at full strength. Given that their next league game is just about the best game they could possibly have hoped for - home to rock-bottom Linense (just 1 win in 19 games, and 9 points from safety) - they can afford to concentrate fully on tonight's game.

Espanyol have no such luxury, being in the relegation zone and with a game against another team in the relegation battle, Almeria, at the weekend. As a result they've decided to rest quite a few first teamers - Jarque, Beranger and Sergio (3 of their first choice defence), Coro and Rufete are all rested, while Tamudo, De La Peña and Finnan are injured.

The tie is played over 2 legs, so won't be decided tonight, but I can definitely see Poli Ejido getting themselves an advantage to take back to Barcelona next week.

[rcgills]

Santander to qualify v Valencia @ 3.3 (Betfair) 1.5pts

Racing Santander are a real bogey side for Valencia in recent years. They've beaten them at home for the last 4 seasons, while at Valencia's Mestalla, they've won 4 and drawn 1 of their last 6 visits, including a 4-2 win this season.

Valencia resting a few players for tonight - Mata, Baraja, Joaquin and Moretti all left out of the squad, while Marca also think Villa will only be on the bench. They've also got a key derby match against Villarreal coming up at the weekend.

Would've considered taking Racing to win tonight, but with top scorer Tchité almost certain to miss out (and Zigic also out, presumably for both legs, due to a clause in his transfer from Valencia), I'm not all that confident they'll win tonight. I do think though that even with a draw tonight, they'll fancy their chances of winning in Valencia next week, especially if Tchité is back by then.

[lurieroy]

thanks rcgills!

realy great stuff from you, again!

just one quition for you or any other members: does a red card at the cup affect the next game at the league? does heitinga can play at sutarday game?

thanks!

[rcgills]

I'm not sure, Lurieroy. I think suspensions can be carried over between the league and the cup, so he may be suspended this weekend. Although I'm not sure how long the Spanish FA take to process these things, it may not come into effect before the weekend, in which case presumably he'll be suspended for the 2nd leg against Barcelona next week instead.

[lurieroy]

thanks mate!

do you have by any case the kist of the suspended players over the uncoming league?(not the cup)

[rcgills]

No. Usually use LFP > Lanzadera for that kind of thing, but over the last week or so I've only managed to open the page up once - it opened with some strange new layout and I couldn't click on anything from there. Presumably they're revamping the site, and fucking it up in the process.

[engineer]

You're staking heavily on Ejido, RC, eh...
Think I'll have a go also, hopefully they won't let us down

[rcgills]

Cheers Engineer. I'm pretty confident in Ejido's chances - I'd be very surprised indeed if they failed to score at all, and there's no way in my mind they should be 3.1 to score twice. As for the home win bet, I was torn between that and the 1X or DNB, but when Espanyol are missing 3/4 of their first choice defence, plus 2 of their best players in Tamudo and De La Peña, the value has to lie with Ejido.

Good luck to both of us, anyway

[FC Basher]

think punters have back them on bet365 as their favs now,ive taken them on the Asian

[Petrous]

standing ovation - very nice value bet on Ejido

[BertCity]

Keep up the good punting

[rcgills]

Thanks Petrous and Bert

Full-time Poli Ejido 3-2 Espanyol, and a profit of around 17pts for the night