It was another exciting and action-packed weekend of sport as Arsenal managed a come-from-behind victory at Aston Villa to keep themselves in the driving seat of the title race as Man City dropped points at Nottingham Forest, while Chelsea’s miserable run continued, and Marcus Rashford continued his hot streak.

Elsewhere, England grabbed a sixth consecutive victory in the cricket as they thumped New Zealand in the first Test, Leigh Wood lost his featherweight world title to Mauricio Lara in the boxing, and Jon Rahm secured a return to golf World No 1 after overcoming a final-round tussle at the Genesis Invitational.

As always, we have picked out three big winning spread bets from the weekend.

Please remember that unlike fixed odds betting, when spread betting losses can exceed deposits.

ASTON VILLA V ARSENAL – GOALS X CORNERS X BOOKINGS (SETTLED AT 1,980)

Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal side may have been fearing the worst as their title charge seemed to be collapsing at the seams as they twice fell behind at Unai Emery’s Aston Villa, but ultimately managed an impressive turnaround with two goals at the death securing a vital 4-2 victory – which was proven to be even more important when Man City led a 1-0 lead slip to draw 1-1 at Forest to drop two points in the race.

An exciting first half was opened within five minutes as Ollie Watkins netted impressively for the home side, but the lead was wiped out just over ten minutes later as Bukayo Saka once again proved to be Arsenal’s key man. However, they still went into the break 2-1 down as Phillipe Coutinho restored the lead for the home side.

Oleksandr Zinchenko netted his first ever Premier League goal to equalise on the hour mark and a Jorginho shot was deflected off the woodwork and off Emiliano Martinez with what was credited as an own goal, while Gabriel Martinelli secured the points by racing to an empty net as Villa’s whole side (including Martinez) were up for a corner.

But where was the profit for punters? With six goals in total, eleven total corners, and four yellow cards bringing 40 booking points, the Goals x Corners x Bookings multi-market settled at 1,980. With the starting spread being 900 – 1025, buyers of the market would have made 955x their opening wager!

The match also saw our BOOSTED pre-match price of 12/1 come in for Arsenal to win coming from behind!

NEW ZEALAND V ENGLAND 1^ST TEST – HARRY BROOK RUNS (SETTLED AT 143)

England continued their excellent recent form with yet another win in the cricket, and this victory over New Zealand was in large part down to the player of the match Harry Brook, 23, who made scores of 89 from 81 balls and then 54 from 41 during England's 267-run win in the pink-ball Test at Bay Oval. Brook now has six fifty-plus scores in his eight Test knocks, including three centuries in as many games in Pakistan in December.

The Yorkshireman's Test strike-rate of 96.88 is a perfect fit for the style captain Stokes and head coach Brendon McCullum have instilled since taking charge last spring, one which has yielded 10 wins in 11 Tests with a sole defeat against South Africa.

His performance will have pleased not only fans of the team, but also punters on his Player Runs market. With an opening spread of 69 – 76, his total of 143 meant that bettors who decided to buy would have been left with 67x their opening wager!

SINNER V MEDVEDEV – TOTAL POINTS (SETTLED AT 182)

And finally, in the first ATP 500 tournament of the year in Rotterdam, former world number one Daniil Medvedev overcome Italy’s Jannik Sinner in a tightly contested three set battle in the final. Sinner won the first set 7-5 but succumbed more cheaply in sets two and three as he fell 5-7 6-2 6-2.

Although the scoreline looked comfortable, the level was high throughout and was down to Medvedev converting 5 of 12 break points and limiting his unforced errors to 17, compared to Sinner's 30. The 27-year-old Russian improved to 6-0 against Sinner. Medvedev will return to the top 10 next week, moving up to the No. 9 spot in the ATP rankings.

For punters foreseeing a long match with many rallies, buying on the Total Points market at a pre-match spread of 148 – 153 would have left them celebrating a 29x return on their opening stake!

Please note that these are examples of winning bets from the past week, and it is important to remember that spread betting carries a high level of risk to your capital and can result in losses larger than your initial stake/deposit.