There’s an old rule in gambling – you won’t make much money betting on the favourite.
You’ll pick up small wins, and when the favourite loses (which happens more than you think), you’ll lose all your winnings and then some.
Anyone who has been betting on Chelsea this season might well be broke by this point. Week after week their standards fall, and while their odds have got longer and longer as the car crash season has progressed, the bookies are still struggling to comprehend just how bad we are.
Next we face Leeds United, and we can see some interesting ways to make money on the game. So even if you can’t rely on Chelsea to make you happy with a win, you can at least use some free bet offers on Midnite to earn some beer money to entertain you.
Leeds appointed Javi Gracia last week after a sacking Jesse Marsch, and the Spaniard got to work immediately. They got a much needed home win against Southampton on Saturday, and with that confidence boost in place, they now come to Stamford Bridge to try and pull of an unlikely win – one which wouldn’t actually be all that unlikely.
Chelsea have a squad assembled for billions of pounds, and should be beating Leeds with ease. But as we’ve seen this season, it’s not that simple. Playing at home should also be an advantage for us, but in fact given the toxic atmosphere building rapidly at Stamford Bridge, it might actually end up being a hindrance.
The mood really felt like it finally turned when we played Southampton two weeks ago – losing at home to the 20th placed team will do that to a stadium. The loss to Tottenham yesterday was almost as bad, but at least it was away, so there wasn’t the bilious boos at full time.
Score nice and early against Leeds and we could ride a positive spiral – but given our recent record in front of goal, we wouldn’t expect us to score at all.
Gracia is a defensive coach at heart, and arriving at a new club and heading away to Stamford Bridge we expect him to set up in a very solid and structured setup. His team will look to slow the game down and waste time, looking to encourage the atmosphere to turn sour so they can try and take advantage of it.
They’ve got a high energy, high pressing team, with plenty of talent in it too. If Gracia can get some confidence back in them (and it looks like he may have done that already), they’re going to be a real test for a Blues team who are looking historically vulnerable.
So if you’re putting your bets on, under 2.5 goals in the game or under 0.5 goals in the first half look odds. Unless Graham Potter’s team suddenly find their shooting boots, a 1-0 win either way looks a decent bet too.
If you could bet on boos at full time we’d put the house on that too – but sadly we don’t know any bookies who are offering that wager.