Football Accumulator Tips: Jamie’s Cross-European Treble is 9/2

No luck last week but the 3-3-3 column is still in profit for the season so on Jamie Pacheco goes.

This week’s selections involve goals and corners so let’s see if Jamie is on the money this time round.   

Welcome to the 3-3-3 betting column. Why is it called that? Glad you asked.  It’s not a formation to play when you’ve had a man sent off but rather:

3- The number of different selections making up the acca.

3- The number of different (non-English) European Leagues the selections are taken from every week.

3- The minimum odds (3/1) or 4.0 if you prefer, that the acca will come to it every week.

And it really is as simple as that. The selections can be from any betting markets, as long as they meet the criteria set out above.  And to round things off, every week I’ll leave you with a cool (or at least I think so) bit of trivia involving one of the teams featured in the acca. Simples...

Current P and L: +1.84pts

Two out of three last week with Verona v Fiorentina ending 1-0 when we needed three or more goals. So, a close one but perhaps not that close. But we’re still slightly in profit for the season and at slightly bigger odds than usual, a win here will see us sitting pretty for the campaign.

Atalanta v Venezia  

Saturday March 1 14:00

Selection: Over 2.5 goals @ 8/15

Atalanta let us down a couple of weeks ago when we needed them to have a both teams to score match and it very strangely ended 0-0, at home to Cagliari.

Just two weeks earlier they did have a BTTS, but it was 1-1, so low-scoring by their standards.

But that shouldn’t put us off the idea that their matches have a tendency to be high-scoring. Prior to that they lost 3-2 at home to Napoli, while their last three on the road in Serie A ended 1-2, followed by back-to-back 5-0 wins for them.

Meanwhile, in Europe their two legs against Brugge ended in 2-1 and 3-1 defats, so that’s further proof their games still have plenty of goals in them.

Their strike rate for over 2.5 goals games at home this season is healthy at 67% while visitors have an ‘overs’ strike rate of 61% when on the road for the campaign. The final score could be anything, but we should get three goals.

Angers v Toulouse

Sunday March 2 16:15

Selection: Back Under 9.5 corners @ 8/15  

One thing I’ve noticed in the six months or so that I’ve been doing the 3-3-3 column is that a few teams in Ligue 1 have an unusually low average corner count in their matches.

That could be down to lots of factors. Teams who play quite narrow tend to have less because they don’t win corners by their wide men having crosses blocked or deflected for corners. Or maybe it’s more that in Ligue 1 teams just don’t attack that much, prefer to keep possession and less attacks lead to less corners.

Whatever the reasons are, Angers and Toulouse are prime examples of teams whose matches have few corners.

Toulouse have a 72% strike rate for away matches with less than nine corners and for good measure, 67% when at home. For Angers it’s 75% away and 73% at home. All of Angers’ last five home games have had nine or less so it’s not too much of an ask for that to become six in a row.

Sporting Lisbon v Estoril

Monday March 3 20:15

Selection: Both Teams to score @ 1/1

I had to re-read (my own) rules regarding the 3-3-3 column as to whether one of the selections could be a Monday one rather than limited to the weekend and there was nothing to say it couldn’t, so the third pick is on a Monday match.

In Portugal, Estoril have been the most improved side in the division over these last two months, going from relegation candidates to seventh place on the back of winning six of their last seven. Unsurprisingly, that’s a better record in the last seven games than anyone else in the division.

Equally unsurprisingly, they’ve been scoring plenty of goals or else they wouldn’t be winning all those games. They beat Estrela 4-2, Santa Clara 3-2 and there were three 2-1 wins in there, as well.

In fact, seven of their last have seen goals at both ends so they haven’t just been scoring plenty, they’ve struggled to keep clean sheets, as well.

So, it’s somewhat surprising that you can get evens on BTTS when they travel to Sporting, a side who have had BTTS matches in five of their last seven.

It’s a price that’s far too big considering those stats. A further rug of comfort, as if that was needed, is that despite conceding five at Sporting last season, Estoril still got one of their own.

James’ Fun Fact

Estoril aren’t necessarily one of the better-known Portuguese clubs to UK football fans but they’ve done a good job of acting as a springboard for players who have gone on to greater things with Helder, Hugo Leal, Vidigal and Paulo Ferreira among those who started their careers there before becoming full Portugal internationals.