The weekend starts early as far as the football is concerned this week with the international soccer break meaning Friday is our main focus here.
The transfer activity reached a frenzy on Monday, Premier League clubs taking their total spend to well over £600m before the transfer window closed – sorry, journalistic law decrees it “slammed shut”. As such many fans will no doubt view the World Cup qualifiers as an unwelcome inconvenience that delays their chance to see their new overpaid star in action.
Not me though! Firstly, as a Grimsby fan the closest I’ll ever get to an incoming superstar was walking past Britney Spears as she came into my local chippy (obviously this was a dream anyway so doesn’t count on many levels) and secondly – and more importantly – the international matches are a major moneymaking opportunity.
The bookies don’t always have their eye on the ball when the qualifiers come round and whilst there might be the odd special offer for England v Moldova we don’t see too much value in that game. England are just 1/20 with bet365 for the win and whilst there is some appeal in backing under 3.5 goals at 8/11 with the same firm it looks a shade short to tempt us in.
Instead we prefer to look at the match between Romania and Hungary, where two teams both in with a shout of making the World Cup – through the play-offs as runner-up to the Netherlands – come head to head. Both have been scoring freely but also conceding and when they met in Hungary in March it finished 2-2.
As such we’re all over both teams to score here at very, very generous odds of 10/11 with William Hill or possibly approaching evens if you prefer to use Betfair. We would have priced it closer to 7/10 and we see plenty of goals in what should be an entertaining clash, so grab it with both hands.
