Blue Square Premier Betting: The lovely art of laying

Non-league / Gary Boswell / 14 August 2009 / Leave a Comment

Sides will look to roughen up Luton Town this year and no-one does that better than this week's visitors Gateshead.

Best Bets: LAY LUTON at [1.42] or shorter against Gateshead; LAY STALYBRIDGE at [2.4] or shorter against Corby Town; LAY HAYES & YEADING at [2.7] or shorter against Altrincham

Gary Boswell reflects on his betting strengths and weaknesses ahead of this weekend's matches and hopes his conclusions can help him achieve another profitable week. First up: a second consecutive chance to take on Luton.

A session in the stats cupboard this week for me by putting the finishing touches to my records for the 08-09 season which threw up a few surprises alongside the expected trends and demographics.

First one was that I didn't win as much in this column last season as I thought I had!

The purple profits in my outrights on Burton Albion were eaten into somewhat by a poor show in the play-offs and for the second season running, I scored badly in match betting in Blue Square South so excuse me if I play somewhat sparsely therein this season. I'm on a mission to boost my overall profits to help bust this recession so The Boz will be sticking to his strengths for 09-10!

One of the slight surprises that the stats threw up that I hadn't clocked before was how much better I tend to do in match betting when laying rather than backing. There is good logic to this of course when, after eight years as a professional pools panel predictor, I am fully conversant with the difficulties of accurately predicting draws in football matches over the long term.

The Lay bet has the simple advantage of building the draw on to your side so if you concentrate on games where the lay price is practical on the team you wish to oppose, you are enhancing your chances of long term profit boosting and reducing your liability to losses.

That's my new theory anyway and it went into successful practice on Day One last week with 100% success rate from my three lays and so I will be sticking to that for the foreseeable to see if I can't get myself into a strong green position on my match betting this season to compliment the strong greens I can always score in the outright portfolios.

Last week I successfully opposed the clubs with comedy boardroom capers going on and it's tempting to do same again this week although Cambridge have surely started the settling down process now with the re-appointment of Martin Ling and a handy three points away from home midweek. In any case, they are due to play serious comedy club Chester City and now that game gets played, there'll be flags flying from all roofs and pigs taking off at Heathrow! Whatever odds you get offered, keep your hands in your pockets on that one!

A move instead to form teams away from home who are visiting clubs with dodgy home records and top of that list is Graham Drury's Corby Town who have got off to a sensational start in Blue Square North and must visit the Bower Fold on Saturday where Stalybridge Celtic have a chronic tendency to under perform. The Celts ended last season in sixth despite failing to win 50% of their home games and have started this season in the same vein with a thumping 4-1 win at Redditch on Day one followed by a 3-0 defeat midweek when they were forced to play at home! A good candidate for the Lay at the projected price around [2.4] especially as Corby are a serious dark horse in their first season at this level. Drury has been noted waving his chequebook and the signing of Gavin Strachan in particular really caught the eye. Two clean sheets as well in two games so far with the remarkable 'cruise mode' entered into on day one when 3-0 up against Harrogate Town. That was some debut result and I think Celtic will be seriously up against it to get anything from them on Saturday.

Second best away pick is for Graham Heathcote's Altrincham who went to Barrow with a game plan midweek and clocked up a very impressive 3-0 win. Johnson and Senior are linking well up front allowing Heathcote to use not-fully-fit talisman Colin Little from the bench and with classy winger Chris Denham also being used sparsely at the moment, I think there may be more to come from the Robins this season. They visit Garry Haylock's Hayes & Yeading who have done well to get their initial point against Stevenage but are surely going to be vulnerable throughout this season having lost several of the quality players who got them up into this league - most notably Steven Gregory.

The other factor to strongly recommend a lay on Hayes at around [2.7] is the form being shown by Stuart Coburn in the Alty goal at the moment. A mercurial character who does have a history of non-league international caps but also often scores low on The Boz's Conference Keeper chart. He was spotted in strong form at the back end of last season and seems to have carried that over into early encounters this year. Hayes might struggle to get past him.

Final lay is on Luton again - at the serious low risk price of [1.42]. The Hatters drew a whopping 7,000plus crowd on Tuesday night and sounded the horns with a crushing 4-1 win over Mansfield but the resulting knee jerk in the prices means I'm prepared to take them on again as we did successfully last weekend. Injuries and suspensions are already building up as teams come out to rough them up and disrupt their flow and there have been notable red cards and penalties a-plenty already in their games. No better side at the rough stuff than Ian Bogie's Gateshead. It's perhaps asking a bit much to expect them to win at the stonking price of [8.4] - although I wouldn't rule it out - but the opposition to the Hatters is the play as a percentage call for low risk.

THE BOZ'S BEST THREE BETS FOR THE WEEKEND:

LAY LUTON at [1.42] or shorter against Gateshead
LAY STALYBRIDGE at [2.4] or shorter against Corby Town
LAY HAYES & YEADING at [2.7] or shorter against Altrincham