Football betting analyst Mark O’Haire returns to share a couple of his favourite fancies across the globe with a focus on the Bundesliga and Scottish Premiership this weekend.
When long-serving Christian Streich stepped down from his role as Freiburg coach in the summer after 13 years of largely overachieving service, there were understandably fears that the Black Forest side may fall away. His former captain and 39-year-old assistant Julian Schuster picked up the baton, and the transition has been surprisingly smooth.
Freiburg’s unfussy home success over struggling Heidenheim last weekend has brought the Breisgau-Brasilianer to within touching distance of the top-four. And whilst Schuster’s side have found life tough against the big hitters (they have lost twice to Bayern, and been beaten by Dortmund, Frankfurt, Leverkusen and Stuttgart), they’ve excelled elsewhere.
Exclude the Bundesliga’s top five teams and Freiburg have returned W9-D3-L1 with the Black Forest boys posting W3-D2-L1 on their six trips to bottom-half teams, keeping four clean sheets in the process. It’s therefore a surprise to see Freiburg available at 1.75 with a +0.25 Asian Handicap start ahead of their trip to St Pauli on Saturday.
This selection has provided profit in 12 of Freburg’s 13 fixtures with teams below them in the Bundesliga table and holds plenty of appeal here. St Pauli were well-beaten by Leipzig last time out and, although an awkward bottom-half outfit, the newly-promoted club have now failed to score in 11 of 21 league dates this season, scoring just 18 goals overall.
What’s more, St Pauli have tabled only six Bundesliga victories thus far – four of which came against fellow bottom-six scrappers. Just two of those triumphs arrived on home soil, meaning our proposed play has won in 15 of their overall 21 league matches, including eight of 10 as hosts, as well as 14 of 16 of their encounters with teams in the top-12.
With St Pauli’s struggles for goals, lack of home wins and toils against top-half teams, it makes sense to oppose them at the lines and prices.
Rangers aren’t far off rock-bottom after the embarrassment of exiting the Scottish Cup last weekend at home to second-tier Queen’s Park. It was the first time in the club’s long and storied history that a side from a lower division has knocked the Govan group out of a cup competition on home soil and was arguably the biggest-ever shock in Scottish Cup history.
It was an astonishing result made even more remarkable by Rangers’ reluctance to axe boss Philippe Clement in the aftermath. Having extended the coach’s contract earlier in the season, the Ibrox outfit have decided to stand by their man despite last week’s humiliation, whilst they also trail bitter rivals Celtic by 13 points in the Scottish Premiership title race.
Rangers have shown a capability to turn it on at times this term but the Teddy Bears’ inconsistency, particularly on their travels, make them incredibly difficult to trust at short prices and a trip to Hearts on Sunday has banana-skin potential. The visitors have been held on their last two trips to Tynecastle and scraped a 1-0 home success in their last meeting.
Overall, this season, Rangers have returned W5-D5-L4 in domestic away days with a bang-average W4-D4-L4 delivered on their Scottish Premiership travels. With that in-mind, I’m more than happy to support an improving Hearts side at home with a +1 start on the Asian Handicap line at 1.75 – Rangers must win by two or more goals for the wager to lose.
Hearts have thrashed Dundee 6-0 in their last league game and earned a penalty shootout success over St Mirren in Monday night’s Scottish Cup showdown. The Jambos are W6-D3-L2 in Scottish Premiership matches since the start of December and have silenced four of their last five opponents in league action with a top-three finish still entirely plausible.
Neil Critchley has galvanised an underperforming group and the confident capital club look well-capable of picking up a positive result against Rangers. Only twice in their last nine meetings in Edinburgh have Hearts been beaten by multiple goals by the Old Firm outfit and there’s a distinct possibility that run will be extended on Sunday.
Subscribe to the Matchbook Betting Podcast here
Subscribe to the Matchbook YouTube channel here
