Betting on Bolton

After the battling but ultimately frustrating reverse to the biggest club in Yorkshire, sorry the world, Wanderers are on the road again as they take on a team who are predictably unpredictable.

Hipster manager Graham Potter’s first season at the helm has been a mish-mash of encouraging displays and surprising defeats as he gets to grips with his young and talented squad that perhaps lacks natural leaders.

The Swans currently lie 9 points away from a play-off place but a huge 14 points above the bottom three, meaning they can play with an element of carefree abandon.

Their second half display in the FA Cup against Brentford showed what they are capable of when everything clicks, a certain Daniel James goal that was highlighted that day for his explosive turn of pace, frightening every Bolton fan to death with the thought of our less than lightening rearguard coming up against his Bolt-like acceleration.

Their form at Liberty Stadium has been an accurate reflection of their indifferent season as a whole. Seven wins, four draws and five defeats illustrate this inconsistency. They have provided a consistent goal threat however, scoring in 81.25% of their home games.

8 of these strikes have come from 15-goal top scorer, Leeds-born, Scottish international striker Ollie McBurnie.

The 22 year-old has 11 goals more to his name than his nearest teammate and registered in their 3-1 midweek reversal at Sheffield Wednesday. With 9 goals this calendar year in all competitions he is the main and obvious threat.

His service will come from the likes of aforementioned young Welsh winger James and the loanee-that-got-away, Bersant Celina. The Kosovan playmaker is also their second top scorer with just 4 league goals to his name.

The Welsh side aren’t as short as Leeds were last week at 1/2 but very much in the mould of last weeks nap, it would be foolish to look past the semi-prolific McBurnie to score in a home win for the Swans.

Our unmatched 20th defeat of the season against Leeds United, while narrow and perhaps a little unfortunate compared to other losses this season, follows a very predictable pattern of allowing the opposition to score at least two goals.

The Swans have also scored two or more in exactly half of their home games. So as we have only scored 2 goals in a game 5 times this season and just twice since September, it is extremely difficult, even far-fetched to see anything other than another away defeat.

McBurnie is even money to score anytime in the game and much like Bamford, he is on penalty duty, which obviously always helps when backing a goalscorer.

The odds only increase to 13/10 when backing McBurnie to score in a Swansea win but even with these odds proving far from money spinning, I still take this as my best bet of the day.

The Swans are liable to concede a goal at home and exactly half of their games at home have seen both teams score.

The price is currently boosted to 11/4, which offers decent value. The correct score group betting is an interesting market which offers 6/4 that the scoreline is either 1-0, 2-0 or 2-1 in Swansea’s favour. This has a pretty good chance of landing in my opinion.

For a more outside chance home goalscorer, Celina is almost a 2/1 shot at 15/8. Players we have missed out on always seem to come back to haunt us, so I fully expect the ex-City winger to play a big part in our downfall on Saturday.

As for a Bolton goalscorer, following last week both members of our legendary (rolly eyes emoji) ‘Wheevers’ partnership that are probably better suited to forming a WWE tag team than a mobile Championship centre-back pairing are 18/1 shots to bother the scorers at anytime. It may be worth a couple of quid but you have probably missed that boat after last week!

This week’s ‘tip’, I say in the loosest of terms however, assuming he starts, is the master of shithousery himself, Joe Williams.

He often gets into good positions for shots 18-22 yards out which he has wasted with wayward attempts thus far.

I just feel he is potentially due a goal at some point soon, call it a hunch. At 12/1 to make the net ripple at any point in the 90 minutes plus stoppage time, this is a decent punt.

One last potential market to look at is the team with most booking points. Bolton are 4/5 to get more booking points (10 for a yellow, 15 for a red so 25 for two yellow cards leading to a red).

With Swansea’s young side naturally exhibiting plenty of pace, tricks and youthful exuberance it looks nailed on to me that we will accumulate more bookings on Saturday than our Welsh counterparts. At 4/5 it isn’t a great one off bet unless you can afford to stake £20+ but it can be permed with any other legs in an accumulator.

So to recap my main bets, my nap is Swansea to win and Ollie McBurnie to score anytime at 13/10. An outside bet is Joe Williams to score for Bolton at 12/1 anytime and Bersant Celina to score anytime at 15/8.

Finally, the correct score to be either 1-0, 2-0 or 2-1 at 6/4 and Wanderers to accumulate more booking points than their opponents.

Enjoy the game everyone and safe journey to those heading to the South Wales coast.

Let’s see if Leestradamus can strike again!!

COYWM!!