Nottingham Forest v Manchester United: Best bets for Sunday and Monday’s Premier League games

Spring into action and punt a lovely bunch of bright yellow cards today.

It’s always a thoughtful time of year in the Prem, as the seasons turn.

Manchester United fans are busy pondering if a new owner would finally unshackle their club from the old ones’ debt.

Nottingham Forest fans are wondering whether someone kept the receipt for all those players.

The answer’s probably a ‘no’ on both counts.

United head to Forest today (4.30pm) with both sides in sore need of a positive result.

Punters mostly need to get their heads round whether Forest’s recent yellow-card frenzy is a blip, or due to the rising pressure of a relegation dogfight super-sized by the scramble for starting places. So far 30 players have made at least one league start for Forest – it’s only 20 for Prem leaders Arsenal – and their own card-count has been running at over three yellows a pop in the past half-dozen games.

Going into this weekend, Forest had the most yellows in the Prem.

The ‘OVER 3.5 cards’ at 5/6 (Bet365) is the best of the day’s coinflips.

Of the likeliest lads on the stats, I like Forest’s Brennan Johnson ‘to be shown a card’ at 13/2 (Bet365) and Joe Worrall at 4/1 (Unibet).

West Ham have a Europa Conference date with Belgium’s Gent-not-Genk on Thursday, but glamourous as that sounds, the visit of Arsenal (2pm) is bigger. The Eastenders ’ drop-fight fixture list is suddenly looking slightly pear-shaped and no bloomin’ error, as I expect they say in the Queen Vic.

Hot Gunner Gabriel Martinelli is priced right at 21/20 (Hills) ‘to score or assist’. Worldie fans want air threat Kurt Zouma ‘anytime’ at 25/1 (Paddy) if starting.

Leeds shipped five against Crystal Palace last week. Even in this bad season, visitors Liverpool (Monday 8pm) boast stats that rate them TWICE as dangerous as the Eagles.

So if I’ve got my sums right that’ll be 10 goals for Liverpool then, and they haven’t got off the bus yet.

Mo Salah got off 10 shots just on his own in the 2-2 against Arsenal – the 6/5 (Bet365, Paddy) ‘Salah anytime scorer’ adds up.

Over in Spain, Atletico Madrid boast seven clean sheets in 12 games – take 10/11 (Paddy, BetVic) they ‘win to nil’ against weak Almeria (5.30pm).

Last week: Winners at 15/4, 11/10, 19/10 and 13/5