Super Saturday

At tea-time this evening Wembley will be rocking to a mancunian chorus (if they have managed to avoid the road closures & train delays) as Man Utd take on City in the FA cup semi-final. While Man Utd are without Rooney due to suspension, City are without Tevez through injury and that is some major loss. If you take away his 19 goals in all competitions their next highest scorer is Balotelli on only 6. With Man Utd failing to score only 3 times all season, you have to worry for a City team that may be overawed by the occasion. So I suggest you grab the 11/10 for a United win which is currently available at Betfred & Victor Chandler.

In the Premier League a basement battle and a half will take place at Blackpool where they entertain bottom of the table Wigan. As regular readers will know, Blackpool are a godsend when it comes to the goals market with 94% of their home matches going over 2.5 goals. Bet365 have this priced at 4/6 and that is well worth as nibble. However Wigan have had a really tough run of fixtures this last month yet only Man Utd have scored more than one goal against them so a Wigan win, best priced 2/1 with Victor Chandler may be worth a shout, especially when you consider Blackpool have only won 1 of their last 12 matches.

In the Blue Square Premier, Bottom club Eastbourne face relegation unless they can gain a victory against fourth placed Kidderminster. Eastbourne have conceded a massive 97 goals this season and I expect that figure to go close to the magic 100 mark by 5pm today with Kiddie pushing for promotion. A Kidderminster win is a best priced 4/6 with Boylesports and that is a steal.

Finally on to 'El Classico', Real Madrid v Barcelona, the most entertaining team on the planet facing the self styled special one. Barcelona, who are 8 points clear of their rivals at the top of La Liga, can all but seal the title with a victory here. They are looking to do the double over Madrid for the third successive season and even though the Madristas will be out to avenge the 5-0 drubbing they received earlier in the season, you have to fancy Messi et al securing the points. They are a best priced 6/4 with Betfred for the victory but can also be backed at 4/5 'draw no bet' with the same firm.

One interesting stat is that Messi has never scored against a team managed by Mourinho - fancy him breaking his duck? Boylesports go 11/8 he scores at anytime, its odds on at other bookies. Ronaldo has never scored against Barca either and with that pair heading the scoring charts one oif them may break their duck this evening.

Finally if you read this in time grab the 23/20 Victor Chandler are offering on Motherwell beating St Johnstone at 12:45pm today, Motherwell, unbeaten in 4 matches, should overcome a St Johnstone side on a downward spiral with ease.

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Aalesunds vs. Motherwell

It’d be fair to say that the Europa League is not everybody’s idea of fun.

To win the tournament generally involves travelling to some of the most remote places on the footballing planet, jeopardising your chances domestically, and playing countless matches.

You go through the endless hours of pain and torment, travelling to place that you never want to return to, places like Kazakhstan, Albania, Wales, and what do you get at the end of it?

Europe’s equivalent of the League Cup and lots of belittling looks from those teams that have smugly gone about their business in the Champions League.

Unless of course you happen to be Fulham, in which case you are patronized in the extreme and want to scream every time you hear or see the words ‘plucky Fulham’, or at least, that’s how I would have felt if I was a Cottager.

It’s unsurprising then, that Motherwell boss Craig Brown’s first words after his side’s second qualifying round victory were: “Now we go on a marathon trip.”

You can almost sense the excitement.

Suffice to say, I don’t expect The Steelmen to put on much of a show against Norwegian Cup winners Aalesund, so much so that I believe the hosts to be very capable of covering a one goal handicap...

Which is why Bet365’s quote of 11/4 on such an occurrence is the bet of the round.

Scottish football is not what it used to be, believe it or not, there was once a time when the likes of Gazza, Gennaro Gattuso and Paolo Di Canio plied their trade in the SPL. Now the division is filled with players that would struggle to make it into Bolton’s reserve team.

Unsurprisingly this has led to a dip in European performances, with last year’s effort quite frankly embarrassing. In the Champions League Celtic crashed out in the qualifiers, while Rangers finished bottom of a very winnable group, a full six points and nine goals behind the interestingly named Unirea Urziceni.

Meanwhile, in the Europa League, Falkirk went down 2-0 to FC Vaduz of Liechtenstein, Aberdeen were pummelled 8- 1 by Czech side Sigma Olomouc and Motherwell exited 6-1 to Steaua Bucharest.

With nothing much changing north of the border over the last 12 months (see Celtics 3-0 defeat last night), I don’t expect the Scottish entrants to fare much better this time around, so they are well worth opposing in any match, particularly when faced with an arduous trip.

As previously mentioned, Motherwell aren’t too keen on their upcoming journey and they also face a team that are well into their domestic season (and performing strongly).

Whereas Craig Brown’s men have played in just two competitive matches this term, and inspired little confidence in eventually grinding out a 2-0 aggregate win over Icelandic minnows Breidablik.

There are all sorts of handicaps to choose from in betting but the most common are the Asian handicap...

Which I’ll explain another time...

And the standard handicap, where one team is given a head-start by the bookmaker.

In the case of Aalesunds vs. Motherwell, the Norwegian side have been made rightful favourites and as such can be backed with a -1 or -2 goal handicap.

My tip is to back the -1 with Bet365 at a mouth-watering 11/4

However, it’s also worth noting that Boylesports are offering a massive 9/1 on the hosts to cover a two goal handicap...

Which is well worth a shout if you can foresee another national tragedy like Celtic's surrender last night.