Taken from Friday's newsletter (30/07) ............
Jul 30, 2021
I looked at four games today and sent subscribers notes on one J-League and three MLS games early this morning, you can read three of them below.
Tomorrow I will be covering 7-8 games from France/ Brazil/ MLS and we are just 7 days away from the start of the English football season.
Japan: J-League 1: Consadole Sapporo- Gamba Osaka (10:00 UK time)
I am not really previewing this game, however, if anyone is getting involved ............
We have covered 3 of the last 4 Consadole home games and they won each and have not conceded in over 450 minutes as host and they have scored 14/18 goals in the opening hour of home games.
Gamba have featured twice in the last week, both in games in Osaka, where we have highlighted the lack of goals in their fixtures and each was 0-0 at half time, on the road, they have not scored a single goal in the opening 60 minutes and those 9 games have averaged only 0.78 goals total.
Cerezo have not played in 20 days which is a long time in mid season and they might take a while to warm up.
I am attracted by the 0-0 half time which is priced at 3.10 and might take a little on that.
The last three h2h games here in Sapporo have all been 0-0 at half time and ended 1-0/0-0/0-1 and for those keen on those types of bets ........both to score/total goals ......no and under 2.5 is priced at 2.55, which feels too big. That would have been a winner in Consadole's last 4 home starts and in 8/9 of Gamba's road games.
MLS:
NYCFC- Columbus Crew
NYCFC finished 5th and went out of the post season early in 2020, that was their first season with Ronny Deila in charge and last pre season I wrote .............
They have made minimal changes this season, all their key players remain, but they have strengthened the squad overall and they have a new head coach in former Celtic boss Ronny Deila , he was already well known to the franchise, otherwise known as Manchester City USA and he was recommended to the Scottish giants by City after he had spent months studying at the Etihad and impressed them with his work ethic and tactical nous.Hs mantra upon arrival was "evolution not revolution" and in his first interview he said:“The way I want to play and the way NYCFC has played is very similar,I’m a very attacking coach. "We want to have the ball as much as possible, but also try to be direct when we have those opportunities.”
He remains at the helm and he and I had some issues with the squad depth in early and it looked for a while that the owners were reigning in the spending, but they did sign three highly rated youngsters for big fees, with the $12m package for 18 yo Talles Magno from Vasco in Brazil , a huge fee in MLS terms and he is being brought along slowly, but has superstar potential.
However, that is not what I wanted to discuss today. Better to focus on NYCFC's form, which is just fantastic, they are coming off a 5-0 win over Orlando City and across their last four starts, they are a combined 31-11 for on target attempts, 16-4 BC's and 45-16 ITB ! It all looks to be falling into place and results are only just starting to reflect how good they have been for most of this season. Their seasonal numbers of 227-114 (attempts created and conceded) and xGD of 25.9-11.5 is so far superior to the rest of MLS that it is barely worth talking about and they should be a minimum 6 points better off.
To give those numbers some context, Crew are a point and place better off in the table (played a game more) , they are 170-160 (attempts) , 16.2- 16.14 xGD and should be 4 points worse off, a 10 point swing in favour of NYCFC over the "real" table.
The two teams met in Columbus two weeks ago, City totally dominated, but Crew won 2-1 and I think a little revenge is on the cards this evening and I expect justice to be done and the numbers to hold up and, for the hosts to record a 6th home win in 7 h2h meetings.
2 units NYCFC -1.5 ball 2.30 asian line.
LA Galaxy- Portland Timbers
Galaxy are six points better off, but xP puts their advantage at just a single point and Timbers have played a game less. Their xGD is as close to identical as makes no difference, as are attempts created, but Portland are "better" defensively in that category. So the numbers suggest that there is little between these two, but what there is, is in favour of the visitors and that backs up what I have seen recently with my own eyes and Timbers look the better team and they were 0.7 points per game superior last season.
The two West Coast rivals have met three times in the last 10 months, Timbers won all three and each by 3 goals, 6-3 (!) here in LA, 5-2 in Portland and 3-0 again at home two months ago in which they were 7-1 BC's , they did have a man advantage that day in the second half, but were 4-0 for BC's before the dismissal and they appear to have LAG's "number". Add in that Galaxy are very short handed due to injury and international call ups and appeared to hit a brick wall in that 4-0 loss at Dallas last weekend and at these odds I feel we have to go with Timbers to continue to boss this series.
1.75 units Portland Timbers level ball 2.77 asian line.
Good luck !
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