Weekend Review: English heartbreak in rugby but football gives punters plenty to cheer about
England lose to reigning champions South Africa by the narrowest of margins at the Rugby World Cup while jockey Frankie Dettori signs off in style with a fairytale victory
It was a punter-friendly weekend of football action as a host of results across the Premier League and Europe swung the way of the bettors.
The weekend’s opening game saw the return of the feisty Merseyside derby between Liverpool (2/5) and Everton (6/1) at Anfield. The Toffees were reduced to 10 men in this match yet again when Ashley Young was given his marching orders before the break.
Everton’s resilience held until a 75th-minute Mo Salah penalty gave the Reds the lead before Salah bagged his second deep into injury time.
The 3pm games on Saturday went the way of the punters with wins for Manchester City (3/10), Newcastle (2/5) and Brentford (3/4).
Saturday night’s crunch match between Chelsea (11/5) and Arsenal (5/4) looked to give the bookies some reprieve as Chelsea went 2-0 up thanks to goals from Cole Palmer and Mykhailo Mudryk, but a spirited fightback by the Gunners saw the game end 2-2.
Meanwhile, Wolves (2/1) won 2-1 on the road at Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest and Luton played out an entertaining 2-2 draw. There was one more encounter on Saturday night as Manchester United (9/25) defeated Sheffield United (13/2) 2-1 at Bramall Lane.
Kindred Group’s Ali Gill said: “A weekend for the punters in the Premier League as we finished behind in seven of the nine games played so far. Liverpool’s 2-0 win in the Merseyside derby was comfortably the worst result of the match round, with Newcastle’s 4-0 demolition of Palace and Man City’s 2-1 win over Brighton both being not far behind.
“A 2-2 draw in the Chelsea versus Arsenal match put a nice black number in the results column, but with Forest Luton leaving us close enough to level pegging, all told, it was not a great week in the Premier League results-wise.”
Francisco Cano, head of trading at LiveScore Group, added: “Overall, it was a challenging weekend for bookmakers, with many favourites winning and many high-scoring games taking place, with eight out of nine games having three goals or more. Every top soccer league recorded a negative margin on Saturday, with several large accas winning on favourites teams and overs on goals.
“Known players placed some of these bets, but we also saw a lot of new customers coming in. The biggest soccer turnover of the weekend came from the Chelsea versus Arsenal match, where we had a positive margin, but this was the only good result for us on Saturday.”
The bookies faired similarly poorly on the continent, with a majority of the favourites winning their games. Summing up the weekend’s action, bet365’s Steve Freeth said: “So Liverpool, Manchester City, Newcastle and Manchester United being the most popular selections in the Premier League, topped up by Brentford with a bit of help from Leicester, Leeds (also paid out on Norwich when they went 2-0 up) and Southampton in the Championship, plus Portsmouth in League One.
“Not only that, we had Lazio, Inter and Napoli winning in Italy, PSG in France, Bayern Munich, Leipzig, Leverkusen in Germany, Atletico Madrid and Real Sociedad in Spain, Rangers in Scotland and PSV and AZ in Holland all coming to the acca party.”
Away from the football, it was heartbreak for England (4/1) as they fell 16-15 to South Africa (1/5) at the Stade de France to crash out of the Rugby World Cup at the semi-final stage.
England did lead this one at half-time, 12-6, but a South African fightback 10 minutes from full-time booked the Springboks’ place in the final to face New Zealand.
Betfred’s Alan Firkins remarked: “There was a chilling inevitability about England’s Rugby World Cup demise against South Africa, who they stifled pretty successfully until losing out cruelly In the game’s dying moments. Pride restored though, after a very difficult recent period.
“The sport’s two Southern Hemisphere giants will contest the final, then on Saturday, we go 8/11 New Zealand, 6/5 South Africa, and it’s 18/1 the tie. I feel desperately sorry for Ireland, who, for me, should be there, but lady luck had other plans.”
Elsewhere in horseracing, it was Champions Day at a soggy Ascot on Saturday where jockey Frankie Dettori crowned a glittering career in Britain with a masterful ride aboard 3/1-favourite King of Steel to land the Champions Stakes.
Things might have been different if Oisin Murphy on Via Sistina hadn’t dropped his whip, yet Dettori, who is set to retire from riding in Britain, took full advantage as he powered Roger Varian-trained King of Steel to victory by three-quarters of a length in the Group 1 race.
Earlier in the day, the 52-year-old Italian produced another quality ride on Trawlerman (9/1) to sweep to victory ahead of 11/10 favourite Kyprios in the Long Distance Cup. The two wins on the day gave Dettori a 39/1 double as the 30,000-strong crowd witnessed two flying dismounts.
Gill commented: “It was Champions Day at Ascot on Saturday and, as expected before a stall even opened, the weather and going conditions made it a very tough day for punters as we finished ahead in five of the six races.
“The writing was on the wall when the first two favourites, Kyprios at 11/10 and Kinross at 5/4, both got beaten a neck by 9/1 and 40/1 shots, consecutively. Our best result on the day came in the Fillies & Mares Stakes, as Poptronic won by a head at 22/1. “The Frankie-Factor just about saved the day for punters in the Champion Stakes as they piled into King of Steel in what was, so we’re told, Frankie’s last ride in the UK. That one left us marginally behind in the end in what was, without doubt, a layers day.”