So once again our bets fell down. At least I had the satisfaction of us not losing the game against Stoke, which was the main aim! Now we are 159 points down for the season to date.
Well, in for a penny, in for a point, I’ll go for the most unlikely result on Friday evening and bet on West Ham to beat Tottenham, with a saver on a draw. Given the respective form of the two sides, I would have to say that beating our North London rivals this week is as close to an impossibility as we have had in this fixture for some time. Much as I don’t like them, I have to concede that Tottenham have as good a team as they have had for some years, and their style and consistency of play makes them easily one of the best two teams in the country, and if they hold on to their best players and manager, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them going one better next season than the runners-up spot that they managed last year, and look likely to repeat this time.
The odds of a West Ham win are nowhere near as generous as they ought to be, and at 13/2, the bookies are saying we have about a 13.3% chance of winning the game. I would say that the chances are realistically lower than that. Nevertheless, we put a halt on their aspirations of getting to the top last March, and the reverse fixture at White Hart Lane this season was a game that we could, and probably should have won. But we must also remember that we haven’t (yet!) beaten any of the sides who are currently in the top eight of the Premier League this season in 14 attempts. We have two chances to rectify this; tonight’s game, and a home again against Liverpool in just over a week.
So, I will stake 31 points at 13/2 (232.5) on a West Ham victory, and 10 points at 15/4 (47.5) on a draw making it minus 200 points for the season so far. In the unlikely event that we pull off a shock win, and how I hope we do, then it will make up for some of the recent disappointing results. We’ve only won one game in our last eleven Premier League fixtures. Can we make it two out of twelve?
The potential returns are in brackets. What are the chances?
Under The Hammers 