By Antony Jordan
We were certainly treated to a fantastic day of football with a vast number of goals scored throughout the eight games played and, more importantly, we saw six of our Saturday EPL picks bring in more than five and a half units profit, even with one pick seeing the stake returned. We have two matches left to play on Sunday and Monday night as West Ham clash with Southampton before Burnley and Watford do battle on Monday Night Football.
We preview both of these remaining games from round six of the Premier League weekend with online sportsbook Sportsinteraction.com to provide our best bets from these pair of clashes.
West Ham v Southampton: 2.88 – 3.24 – 2.41
Neither of these two teams have started the season particularly well as they come into this clash at The London Stadium sitting 18th and 14th respectively having taken three and five points each. Both sides have very differing problems as West Ham are seemingly incapable of keeping the ball out of the net with 11 goals conceded to Man City, Watford and West Brom in their last three EPL games – all of which have ended in defeat – while Southampton are struggling to find the net with them bagging just four goals all season long.
The Hammers have not had problems scoring goals with five goals scored in their three successive losses and in Mikhail Antonio they have one of the league’s top goalscorers as he has netted in each of the last four EPL games, and with them seeing off Accrington Stanley in the cup during the week with a magical Dimitri Payet free kick they will hope to have turned a corner. Another problem that they have is that they are still missing Andre Ayew, Andy Carroll and Diafra Sakho up front through injury while defenders Winston Reid and Arthur Masuaku are doubts too. Add to this that all of their home games at the new stadium this season have seen some very poor performances, so they will certainly need to up their game if they’re to end their winless league run this Sunday.
The reason that West Ham will have to up their game is that Southampton bring a three match winning run in all competitions into this match having seen off Sparta Prague in the Europa League, Swansea in the league and Crystal Palace in the cup without conceding a goal. With Saido Mane and Graziano Pelle having left the club and Jay Rodriguez out injured The Saints are short on strikers, but Charlie Austin has four goals in these three wins and will be desperate to add to his league tally in this clash.
With nine of the last 12 meetings between the sides having ended with the sides level or separated by just a single goal we see this being a close match, but with both sides in excellent attacking form – and the home side leaking goals at an alarming rate – we feel that the value on this match is on the goals market.
We are backing Over 2.5 goals in this West Ham v Southampton game @ 1.88
Burnley v Watford: 2.96 – 3.08 – 2.46
Turf Moor hosts this week’s Monday Night Football as both of these sides go searching for the first victory between them in five games following four successive draws going back to 2012 and, according to Sportsinteraction.com, it is the away side who are the more favoured to claim all three points in this clash. With stunning 4-2 and 3-1 wins against West Ham and Manchester United in their last two EPL games Watford are finding their feet under a new manager this season after a tough start to the season that has seen matches against Southampton, Chelsea and Arsenal as well as their wins. Can they carry their form into this televised game?
Burnley have won just one league match on their return to the top flight as they completed a smash and grab over Liverpool at Turf Moor with two goals scored and none conceded despite having less than 20% possession. Since then they have failed to score against League Two Accrington Stanley in the cup as well as Chelsea and Leicester in the league as they fell to losses in each of the games. They did battle well on home soil against Hull and came within seconds of taking all three points until Robert Snodgrass levelled in injury time, but with just one goal in four matches are they good enough to see off Watford?
With the away side available at odds of 2.46 to win this match they certainly offer plenty of value, but this will be a close game as Burnley defend well and deeply on home soil. Watford have enough quality to control the game with the majority of possession and we feel that they will be the side to take all three points in this Monday Night Football clash.