Odds On - your guide to the week's best bets

13 April 2012

Burnley are ready to end 30 years of hurt

Football fact of the day — it's over 30 years since Burnley last scored at home against east Lancashire rivals Blackburn Rovers, whom they play at Turf Moor on Sunday. That's a long time to wait for a goal, so lump on at 11-10 for the hosts to find the onion bag in the first half.

When these sides met at Ewood Park earlier on in the season, David Dunn, who scored twice in the midweek victory over Birmingham City, grabbed the opening goal in a 3-2 win — and he's 7-1 to break the deadlock again.

Another useless stat to impress/bore your chums is that Liverpool haven't conceded a goal against Sunderland in their last five matches at Anfield. They're 4-6 for a shutout in Sunday's game and 5-6 to win and keep a clean sheet.

They think it's all Zola...

In the world of football, when a manager is given the dreaded vote of confidence (why is it always the 'dreaded' vote of confidence?), it normally means only one thing — they're out.

Despite being publicly backed by West Ham's owners at the start of the week, Gianfranco Zola is on borrowed time judging by the way punters have made him the 6-5 favourite in the Premier League sack race.

The Hammers may have lost their last five games but three of those were against Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal. At 5-4, Mark Hughes is the most likely candidate to take over as manager should Zola leave.

Former Hammer Slaven Bilic appeals at 6-1 while ex-managers Alan Curbishley and Alan Pardew are 15-2 and 16-1 respectively. Even if the Italian survives, he's 4-6 not be in charge of West Ham on the first day of next season.

Back street-fighter Lewis

McLaren hold all the aces at this weekend's Australian Grand Prix. Their drivers have won the last two races in Melbourne — Jenson Button taking the chequered flag last year, when he was with Brawn, following Lewis Hamilton's success.

The 2008 champion believes the street circuit should suit the McLaren car better than the Bahrain track did in the opening race on F1's calendar and he certainly has a liking for the course.

Hamilton was third on his F1 debut at Albert Park and last year he finished in the same position but was then disqualified for misleading race stewards. Hamilton is 13-2 to triumph (back him each way at one fifth of the odds), with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, now 11-8 for the title after we tipped him in this column at 5-2, the 9-4 favourite.

Treble won't be trouble

Another week, another winner. Both Fernando Torres and Wayne Rooney scored in last weekend's Manchester United-Liverpool game, which we tipped at 4-1, but our football acca keeps letting us down. This week, we're going for a 13-2 treble on Chelsea, Swansea and Bristol City.

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