Pre-season Friendly Matches: Betting Tips

With the football season only a matter of weeks away, those meaningless pre-season friendlies are in full swing. A chance to see a few new faces in your teams colours or a chance to wave good riddance to your want-away striker? Whatever way you look at it they’re a bit of a waste of time from a betting angle. Or are they?

Personally I don’t like betting on non-competitive games but there’s not much sporting action on today other than the car-crash of a British Open at windswept Royal Birkdale. So I thought I’d take a look at today’s friendly matches and settle down in front of the telly.

Kaiser Chiefs v Man Utd - Live on Setanta 1. Kick off 2:30pm

First up it’s Man Utd in South Africa taking on the Kaiser Chiefs. I know what you’re thinking, has Fergie completely lost the plot? Taking his team half way round the world to play against a 5-piece band from Leeds?

But seriously, this should be a good run out for Fergie’s men. The Chiefs beat a young United side in 2006 but Fergie has a stronger squad with him this time. This is the fourth time the sides have met since 1993 so United will know what to expect from the fanatical support.

Of course, Man United should win. At 2/5 (Bet 365) the bookies aren’t being too generous though and a lot will depend on the team that Sir Awex chooses to field. For me that price is too short to get involved.

Instead I’m more interested in the 8/11 at Paddy Power on there being more than 2.5 goals in the game. Although Ronaldo will be missing, there’s plenty of goals in the United side. The Africans aren’t renowned for their stoic defending either so I expect the net to be bulging on a few occasions. Also watch out for former Charlton striker Shaun Bartlett trying to get on the scoresheet

Barnet v Arsenal - Live on Arsenal TV. Kick off 3pm.

Arsenal make the short trip to Barnet for their first pre-season warm-up game and the bookies have them as short priced favourites to pick up a win. Like most of these pre-season games the starting line up will be anyone’s guess but you’d have to think that whatever eleven takes to the field they’d be too good for Barnet.

At 11/50 (Centrebet) though it’s hardly worth a punt. Instead take a look at the anytime goalscorer market where new signing Aaron Ramsay is 12/5 (Paddy Power) to mark his debut with a goal. Cesc Fabregas is 2/1 (Bet 365) to carry over his Euro 2008 form by finding the net - although it’s more likely that he won’t feature - and Theo Walcott is 15/8 (Bet 365) to hit the net.

Schalke 04 v Rangers - Live on Setanta 2. Kick off 3pm

Both Glasgow giants are in action today but it’s Rangers who needs to get up to speed the quickest. Their first Champions League qualifier is just 10 days away so Walter Smith’s men will be looking to be as competitive as possible against Schalke this afternoon.

But the bookies don’t fancy the Gers’ chances much, making them 3/1 (Bet 365, Skybet) to win in Germany. A lot has been made of Smith’s signings to date and it will be interesting to see if the strikeforce of Miller and Velicka will be as impotent as many Gers fans fear. They’ll be looking enviously at the other end of the park where David Weir and co. will have to contend with the likes of Kuryani, Farfan, Asamoah and former Ranger, Peter Løvenkrands. The Dane is 7/4 (Bet 365) to find the net against his former club and that might be worth a small investment.

I’d be tempted to side with the Germans on this one and at 10/11 (Paddy Power) they’re not a bad price.

Fulham v Celtic - Kick off 3pm.

Less than 24 hours after disposing of Southampton in Klaus Lundekvam’s testimonial, Celtic (and their fans) travel up to London to take on Fulham this afternoon.

The fixture gives the Craven Cottage fans their first opportunity to see Bobby Zamora and John Pantsil in the Fulham line-up. For Celtic it will probably be changes all round from last night’s 2-0 win.

Both these sides met a couple of pre-seasons ago and played out a rather dull 0-0 draw. A repeat scoreline is 17/2 at William Hill. The bookies cannot separate the two sides either, with Fulham best priced at 8/5 (Ladbrokes) and Celtic at 7/4 (William Hill). If this was a competitive game I’d be siding with the SPL champions to win this one, so the 7/4 looks to be on the generous side to me.

Wisla Krakow v Liverpool - Live on Five. Kick Off 5pm.

Liverpool continue their pre-season European tour with a visit to Poland to take on the Ekstraklasa Champions Wisla Krakow. The bookies have Liverpool as firm favourites to win this one with most going 4/7 about a Reds win.

There’s no Torres of course but Stevie Gerrard may start this one and he’s 11/2 (Bet 365, Paddy Power) favourite to open this scoring. It was Lucas who managed to do just that in Wednesday’s friendly against Lucerne and he’s 12/1 (Bet 365, Paddy Power) to repeat the feat this evening.

This isn’t much of a betting event to be honest but I do think that Krakow will provide a sterner test than the 53/10 (BetInternet) suggests. I wouldn’t have thought the Polish champs wouldn’t be too bad a side and at over 5/1 it might just be tempting for one or two.

Bets of the rest

There’s plenty of other games on today too and here’s a few other tips that are worth looking at;