Newcastle v Liverpool: Best bets for Sunday’s Premier League games
Our betting expert with tips for St James’ Park, and the Aston Villa and Manchester City road trips PLUS a La Liga angle
Take a punt on foul play at St James’ Park.
Expect a close-fought encounter, with freshly added grit, when Liverpool head to Newcastle (4.30pm).
Saudi Arabia’s oily dabs are now all over both these sides. Mo Salah has reportedly been offered over £1million a week to play in the Saudi Pro League.
That’s about six grand an hour, every hour, including when you’re staring out the window at four in the morning wondering what you are.
Today’s referee John Brooks is a man on his way up the ladder.
He’s probably still best known for a wobble over drawing lines in the sand when his VAR team wrongly chalked off a Brighton goal for offside last season. On the field, he produced nearly 4.5 yellows a pop, which shows admirable enthusiasm for the job, and he could find plenty to do this afternoon.
If they start we should get a run out of Toon’s Sandro Tonali at 2/1 and Anthony Gordon at 3/1 ‘to be shown a card’ (Skybet).
There might not be many more chances to back Salah ‘anytime scorer’ at any price – 2/1 (Hills) is too big to ignore.
Manchester City raw stats were better without Kevin De Bruyne last season than with him. Same story the season before, which says something about City’s squad, and something about raw stats.
Julian Alvarez’s 50-50 strike-rate whenever KDB was missing still shines. Get on Alvarez ‘anytime’ at 13/8 (Hills) and 12/1 (Betway) ‘Erling Haaland scores a header’ at Sheffield United (2pm).
It looks like Aston Villa will be doing the gruelling Thursday-Sunday shuffle this season. West Ham threw in some iffy ones after their Euro road trips last time, though in fairness they weren’t easy to tell apart from the iffy ones they threw in more generally.
Villa travel as far as Burnley (2pm) for now. I like Ollie Watkins ‘score or assist’ at Evens (Hills), and 11/1 (Betway) he ‘scores a header’ is fair.
In Spain, Real Betis’s uptick could be going under the radar. Nip in for 10/11 (Bet365) WIN or DRAW at Bilbao (8.30pm) before the penny drops.
