With Jose Mourinho content to shuffle his way towards the title due to a lack of striking options, how should spread betters approach Sunday’s big Arsenal v Chelsea clash at the Emirates?

The Blues are 10 points clear of their London rivals in second with just six games to go and look nailed on to win the league at 1/100 compared to the Gunners’ 33/1 price on our long term fixed odds.

Even so, a win for Arsene Wenger’s men in the 4pm kick-off game on Sky Sports 1 would at least keep things mildly interesting for the neutral for the remaining matches of the season.

With the Blues facing the possibility of being without Diego Costa, Loic Remy and Didier Drogba, it seems likely that Mourinho will have to continue with his tactics of containment and stifling the opposition while looking to the likes of Eden Hazard, Willian or ex-Gunner Cesc Fabregas to nick something when the chance arises.

Long gone are Chelsea’s free-scoring romps from earlier in the campaign. Instead only one of Chelsea’s last 14 games in all competitions have resulted in more than three goals being scored in total in 90 minutes and in eight of the last 11 games Chelsea have just scored the single goal in regulation time.

Perhaps that’s why at Spreadex we’ve seen some nibbles of buyers of Time of 1st Chelsea Goal on a spread of 55 – 58 (makes up at 90 if Chelsea don’t score) and sellers of Chelsea Total Goal Minutes on a spread of 53 – 61 (spread based on minutes of all Chelsea goals scored in the match).

Arsenal may be the form team of the moment, but their recent record against Chelsea is poor with just one win in their last eight against the Blues and only two goals scored in their last seven against the men from Stamford Bridge.



With that in mind perhaps that’s why again we’ve seen some sellers of an admittedly quite low Total Goals spread of 2.35 – 2.55 and sellers of Total Goal Minutes on the 120 – 130 spread.

Spreadex’s Goal Supremacy quote for this one is Arsenal/Chelsea 0.1 – 0.3 which, while giving Arsenal a small advantage, still suggests this is more likely to end up as a stalemate – which would suit Jose just fine.

Looking at the other televised clashes of the weekend, the action starts with Southampton v Tottenham from St Mary’s at 12.45pm on Saturday on BT Sport 1.

With both sides battling for a top six and Europa League spot, Saints fans have chosen this game to hold a ‘Ronald Koeman Day’ - surely slightly ungracious as former boss Mauricio Pochettino, who did so well on the south coast, comes to town?

As for the betting, the Spreadex traders have the Goal Supremacy at Saints/Spurs 0.35 – 0.55 giving the hosts a reasonable advantage and already we’ve seen most of the money getting with Southampton here as our clients expect Pochettino to be given a tough time on his return.

Southampton matches usually herald very few goals – there have been just 16 goals scored in total in the Saints’ last 11 matches in all competitions – and this is perhaps why we’ve seen some sellers of Total Goals on a quote of 2.4 – 2.6.

The spreads point towards a narrow, low scoring Saints win, which would push Koeman’s men up into the Europa League places.

However, seventh place could actually be enough to secure a Europa League spot anyway come the end of May if Arsenal win the F.A. Cup – which may not be what Spurs or Saints will be wanting to hear.

Saturday’s 5.30pm game is Man City v Aston Villa on Sky Sports 1. City have been simply awful of late and even only beat a West Ham team present in body if not spirit 2-0 last week.

Before that City had lost six of their last eight while Villa have won five and lost just two of their last eight. These stats potentially back up why we’ve seen a few spread betters getting with the visitors, selling a Goal Supremacy spread of City/Villa 1.85 – 2.05 and buying the binary spread of Villa to Win Match at 4.3 – 7.7 (makes up at 100 if Villa win, 0 if they don’t).

Sunday’s early TV game is Everton v Man United at 1.30pm on Sky Sports 1. Both sides have seen resurgence in form in the latter part of the season after distinctly dodgy starts to the campaign.

Everton have lost just once in their last seven while United have lost two in their last eight with a real upturn evident since their 3-0 win over Tottenham and most observers agreeing the Red Devils were rather unfortunate to come away from Stamford Bridge with nothing last week.

United are favourites despite being away and despite the influential Michael Carrick still likely to be sidelined, Robin van Persie only just returning from injury and Radamael Falcao still horrendously out-of-sorts.

It could be argued that Everton, who haven’t lost at Goodison since the turn of the calendar year, may get something out of this. But we’ve seen some bullish bets getting with United, buying on a Goal Supremacy price of United/Everton (h) 0.3 – 0.5, buying United Goals at 1.35 – 1.55 and selling time of 1st, 2nd and 3rd United goals on spreads of 49 – 52, 76 – 79 and 85.5 – 87.5 respectively.