Derby, Derby….Top Of The League!
Derby County are at the top of the Championship and Reading are bottom of the league. Granted there has only been one fixture in a 552 match campaign but things look good for Frank Lampard’s team. Trailing to a goal early in the second half Derby took just eight minutes to level the scores and won the match with a stunning goal deep in injury time. Lampard may well have the Midas touch.
It was telling how Lampard embraced the players at the end of the match with no awkwardness a la Gareth Southgate and the England squad. The Rams have gambled on Lampard’s contacts to overcome his lack of experience as a manager. Uncle Harry Redknapp and Frank senior were in the crowd to support their boy and DERBY are now 10/3 with William Hill to be promoted to the Premier League.
There is a match on Sunday and Monday in the Championship so the other nine fixtures of the first weekend are played today and two are live on television. There seems to be no limit to the appetite for televised football and four of the 12 opening week matches are being broadcast live. SUNDERLAND have sold 22,000 season tickets and they should begin life in the third tier of English football by beating Charlton at home (Evens with bet365).
The TV match in the Championship today is Sheffield United’s home fixture against relegated Swansea. The first day of the new season is when the reality of dropping down a level hits home. Swansea are now in a dogfight to regain their Premier League status. SHEFFIELD UNITED won all but one of their first eight matches last season and they can embark on this campaign by beating Swansea and that outcome is 5/4 with Coral.
Its the fifth and final day of Glorious Goodwood and the feature is the Stewards’ Cup which is one of the most competitive sprint handicaps of the season. A maximum field of 28 runners go to post and bookmakers are offering different terms. There will always be a trade-off between the number of payout places and the win odds for each horse. Ladbrokes go one fifth the odds for six places but still offer the joint top odds of 14/1 for GIFTED MASTER to win the race.
Leave a Reply