Spain betting 16-22 September

Hercules v Barcelona B both teams to score - NO @ 2.56 (Betfair) 3pts

Price looks much too big to me here - it's presumably based largely on the fact Barcelona B's games are almost always high-scoring (they averaged 3.5 goals a season last year, with 2/3 of their games going overs). In spite of that, however, 2 of their 3 league games so far this season have seen one of the two sides fail to score (lost 0-2 to Villarreal B, won 0-4 away to Cartagena).

Their opponents Hercules are a team that likes to keep things very tight. From three league games this season, they've scored 3 and conceded 1, and they've not yet had a game in which both teams have scored.

A clash of two contrasting styles, then, and just a question of which one will come out on top. This bet could end up going badly wrong with a 9 goal thriller, but at the price, I'm quite happy to take a chance on Hercules, as the home side, imposing their style more upon the game and keeping things tight.

FFS Got home at HT, saw it was still 0-0. Considered backing both sides to score at 3.5, decided against it. 5 minutes into 2nd half, checked the odds again, out to 4.0. Decide to cover my stake, only for the first goal to go in (Barcelona B) while I was making my mind up. Wait for the odds to come back up, now 2.5, decide that fuck it, Hercules probably won't score as they're down to 10 men, at which point I hear the "Goooooooooooooool" coming from the TV, to see that Hercules have equalised

No time to go into much detail on these, but tomorrow's bets:

Mallorca v Malaga @ 2.25 (Stan James) 2pts

Not been impressed with Mallorca so far this season. Malaga impressed against admittedly poor opposition in Granada last Monday. Baptista back for Malaga too, which can only be a good thing for them.

Huesca v Alcoyano over 2.5 goals @ 2.7 (Betfair) 1.5pts

Both sides struggling so far this season, Huesca with 0 pts and Alcoyano 1. Huge price here for the overs though, bearing in mind that Huesca have actually gone overs in all 3 of their league games this season, scoring 2 and conceding 7. They're also expected (according to Marca) to be making major changes to their side, changing the keeper and half the defence, which may hopefully see them lose a bit of stability at the back.

Deportivo v Sabadell over 2.5 goals @ 2.05 (Bet365) 3pts
Depor to win from behind @ 7 (Bet365) 0.5pts
Sabadell to win from behind @ 15 (Bet365) 0.5pts

Sabadell joint top of the league with three wins from three, scoring 9 and conceding 6 in the process (2-1, 3-4 and 3-2). In all of those games, they had to come from behind. Their only other game so far this season, in the Spanish Cup, also went overs, with Sabadell taking the lead only to lose 2-1.

Deportivo's first two games only produced 1 goal each, but since then they've had a 5-1 win over Girona in the cup, and a 3-2 win away to Barcelona B, so their games seem to be a lot more open recently.

Sabadell's manager is quoted in Marca as saying his team will be going out there to play without any kind of inferiority complex, looking for the 3pts, the same as always.

By the way, better prices are available on those "win from behind" markets at PP and Coral (I think) according to Oddschecker, although due to either lack of funds or not having an account, I can't take advantage on either of those.

One early one for Sunday:

RB Linense v Cadiz (DNB) @ 2.95 (Sporting Odds) 2pts

A local derby from Segunda B group 4. Linense off to a flying start since getting promoted from the Tercera division last year, winning 4 out of 4, including a highly impressive 4-0 away demolition of last year's runners up Sevilla B last weekend.

Cadiz the clear favourites to win the division, but they're off to a slow start, a win and 3 draws from the opening 4 games. Price seems to me to be influenced by Linense's start to the season (perhaps reasonably so), but if this had been the first match of the season I would have expected to see Cadiz as favourites, certainly not 3/1 outsiders like they are here.

Also wondering whether I can convince myself to back under 3.5 in Barcelona v Osasuna. 2.1 for under 3.5 And you'd have to go back to 2002/03 for the last time a Barcelona v Osasuna game went over 3.5. In fact, 5 of the last 8 have been under 2.5 (currently priced around 3.8 ).

Bet365 have 5 players at odds on in the anytime scorer market, including Messi @ 1.28

Seeing as I've gone to the effort of typing this up on another forum in response to a few people looking to back Valencia, I'll copy it over here too in case anyone's thinking of backing them:

And I thought 2.7 was a good price, it was one of the lowest prices matched, actually went out to 3

Overs came in by the 32nd minute, HT now and it's 2-2

Sorry Keem, was out last night so didn't get a chance to reply.

All the main bets won yesterday - Malaga beat Mallorca, Huesca v Alcoyano finished 3-3, and Deportivo v Sabadell finished 2-1 to bring in the overs, although the win from behind bets didn't come in.

Nothing really grabs my attention for today so am just going to stick to a few in-play bets, plus the Cadiz DNB that's still pending for this afternoon.

Taken Cadiz DNB@ 2/1 Bet365, ta

For Swoop, ODM, and anyone else interested, it's 0-0 HT, both sides down to 10 men since the 29th minute. Cadiz apparently had a few decent chances at the start of the game (according to a Cadiz site), since the red cards it's descended into a bit of a niggly contest. Still well in contention though for the 2nd half.

FT, Linense 0-2 Cadiz

Nice one Never felt a thing either, fell asleep

thanks for the tip

Full program of games in Primera between Tuesday and Thursday, might as well stick them in this thread.

One for tomorrow:

Villarreal (-1 a/h) v Mallorca @ 2.1 (Bet365) 3pts

Villarreal are off to a very shaky start so far, with just 1pt from their first 3 games, but if they were asked to choose an opponent for tomorrow, I suspect Mallorca would probably be pretty close to the top of their list. So far Villarreal have had a 5-0 hammering at Barcelona (didn't play particularly well, but if Barcelona are in the mood they can do that to just about any team), a 2-2 draw at home to Sevilla where they IMO probably just about deserved to win, despite playing 70 minutes with 10 men after keeper Diego Lopez was sent off, and then a disappointing 1-0 defeat away to a Granada side usually strong at home at the weekend.

Mallorca have 3pts from a 1-0 win against Espanyol (with the goal scored by De Guzman, who has since joined Villarreal, and is a big loss to Mallorca), but have lost their last 2 games 1-0 (away to Betis, home to Malaga) and have looked largely toothless.

So far then, while Villarreal will certainly be disappointed to have just 1pt on the board, they've had to play 2 of the tougher opponents in the division, no reason to believe they're in decline. Anything but a win against a side like Mallorca would be much more of a worry, but I suspect they'll be sitting comfortably in mid-table this time tomorrow.

Was also considering backing Real Sociedad to beat Granada, but the fact Xabi Prieto is out for them means I'm reluctantly going to give it a miss, although may consider backing them in-running if I get a chance to watch any of the match.