Premier League Betting: Drogba and Rooney bully their way to victory
After he destroyed Arsenal at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, Didier Drogba is only four behind Wayne Rooney in the race to be the Premier League’s top goalscorer. Worth a punt? Ralph Ellis thinks so.
“Drogba looks in the mood to bully anybody who stands in front of him and Chelsea are 1.75 to win at Everton on Wednesday night.”
So the weekend started with John Terry on the wrong end of a campaign about his wayward private life. It should have ended with Didier Drogba the target for the anti-bullying campaigners.
Chelsea’s big centre forward, when it comes to playing Arsenal, is like the big lad in the sixth form who pins the little first years up against the bike shed wall then steals their dinner money. “I don’t know what it is but I just seem to score against Arsenal,” he said after two more goals at Stamford Bridge that brought his tally to 12 in as many games against the Gunners.
Well we know what it is. Arsene Wenger’s side just can’t handle the sheer brute force of Drogba when he’s on his game, and knowing it fills him with so much confidence it’s inevitable he will be on his game.
Back from the African Cup of Nations, Drogba looks in the mood to bully anybody else who stands in front of him and Chelsea are 1.75 to win at Everton on Wednesday night as a result.
But then maybe we shouldn’t single out Drogba too much, because the Premier League has got more bullies than Tom Brown’s Schooldays. Wayne Rooney, for instance, destroyed poor Portsmouth in a 5-0 Old Trafford mauling that got Avram Grant’s side so nervous they ended up conceding three own goals.
Rooney’s 21 for the season means he stays 1.44 favourite to be Premier League top scorer and that might be too tight, because Drogba is now only four behind him and looking tempting value at 5.2.
Regular readers will know I backed Jermain Defoe at the start of the season, but he’s looking the worst kind of bully, the one who runs away from the bigger kids. He might have hit three at Hull, five against Wigan and another hat-trick in an FA Cup replay at League One leaders Leeds, but when it mattered against Aston Villa on Saturday night he spooned his one good chance over from four yards. The goalless draw meant Spurs dropped out of the top four.
That was because Liverpool continued a run of 17 points from the last available 21, playing for an hour with ten men in the Mersey derby and never looking in too much trouble defending Dirk Kuyt’s headed goal. Rafa Benitez faces a test now, though, to see if his side have just been picking on weaker teams or have solved their own problems – their next two games are at Arsenal and then Manchester City. It’s still 1.64 that the Premier League will have a new top four at the end of the campaign.
The bullying goes on all the way down the table. Stoke subjected Blackburn to a barrage of 21 Rory Delap long throws as well as countless free kicks and corners and beat them 3-0. The 3.7 for them to do the same to Wigan tomorrow night looks generous.
And Kevin Phillips picked on poor Wolves, coming on for the last half hour to score two goals that turned the Midlands derby on its head for Birmingham after Kevin Doyle had given Mick McCarthy’s side the lead. Phillips against Wolves is a bit like Drogba against Arsenal – he’s scored against them for five different clubs and even got four in four games one year for hated rivals West Brom. Wolves are now odds on for the drop at 1.92 and that could shorten further with a tough home game against Spurs on Wednesday night.
Other teams are pinching points. Bolton drew 0-0 with Fulham and of course Hull, at one time favourites ahead of Portsmouth to finish bottom, produced the performance of the day with a 2-1 win over Manchester City. Burnley are the third team that Betfair punters expect to go down at 2.02 even though they got a crucial 2-1 home win to West Ham.
If you want to know why Fabio Capello won’t drop John Terry as well as strip him of the captaincy, did you see the way Matthew Upson failed to deal with a straightforward long ball for Burnley’s first goal? Anyway the Hammers now have three home games against Birmingham, Hull and Bolton to justify why they are still as long as 5.2 to get relegated. Like the schoolmaster would tell the little kid: “You need to learn to stand up for yourself”
