Scottish Football Betting: Carry on Samaras, carry on Celtic

Scottish Football / John Girvan / 26 September 2008 / Leave a Comment

John Girvan fears his beloved Rangers may not have it all their own way away to Hibernian but it should all be far simpler for Celtic and in-form Samaras as they play hosts to Aberdeen.

There is a potential banana skin lying in wait for Rangers at Easter Road on Sunday where they travel to face an improving Hibernian and on Saturday two favourably priced home wins for Dundee United and Motherwell could yield a better return than a more than likely home win at Celtic Park.

October 2004 is the last time Aberdeen managed to record a league win here and a repeat of that pays dividend at [13.0]. They did however record a 1-0 victory at this ground in last season's Scottish Cup and the Dons away form has been good so far this season with three wins from three but anything other than a home win is highly unlikely. The draw is also a seemingly even more an outside bet in this fixture with no sharing of the spoils in 26 Parkhead league meetings. A draw on Saturday is priced up at [5.7].

Celtic are [1.32] in the match odds and look as though they have their season back on track, domestically anyway. They are scoring freely with seven goals in their last two outings, both away from home it's worth noting, and Aberdeen could be in for more of the same. Gordon Strachan is heaping praise on striker Georgios Samaras and the Greek with eight goals to his name already this term is likely to inflict damage on the visitors, carrying on his rich vein of goal scoring form. Celtic -1.5 goals in the Asian Handicap at [1.98] is good value here, as is over 2.5 goals at [1.78].

Dundee United to beat Hearts and Motherwell to beat St. Mirren this Saturday look like two, good value, home win selections. United appear to have their season back on track after a much needed first win of the season at Pittodrie last weekend and there is yet more controversy emanating from the Tynecastle boardroom. Failure to pay the players wages last week has resulted in rumours of possible strike action but these have been denied publicly by club captain Christophe Berra. The matter has been resolved and the game will now definitely go ahead but it must be terribly unsettling for the players and the Tangerines could be set to capitalise. Dundee United are available in the match odds at [2.42].

The Buddies crashed out the Co-op Insurance Cup on Tuesday night at 1st Division Dunfermline on Tuesday and manager Gus MacPherson described the second half performance as "shocking" so confidence may not be high going into this one. Motherwell also crashed out to local rivals Hamilton after extra-time but pushed league leaders Rangers hard on Sunday despite being in France on Thursday night for a UEFA Cup clash with AS Nancy. It was another game they faired quite positively in despite losing narrowly but the class of opponent is dropping drastically here, they are at home and this is a classic top 6 v bottom 6 clash where the outcome should be a home win priced at [1.94].

Rangers could be in for a tough time in Sundays visit to Easter Road. The clash with fourth placed Hibernian is live on Setanta with a 2pm kick-off and The Gers don't have a great recent record here to call upon. Hibernian on the other hand always take the game to Rangers at home and despite an indifferent start to the season last weekends 1-0 win at Hamilton, and the fact they have goal scorer Derek Riordan to call upon once again since his return from Celtic, will flood the squad with confidence.

There have been seven Easter Road league clashes between the sides in the last three seasons and the visitors pip the hosts slightly with three wins over two. This equates to a strike rate of 43% so it makes backing Rangers at [1.75] very poor value and although it's a game the away side are more than capable of winning the value lies with laying them or the more specific choices of [3.65] for the draw or even [5.7] for a Hibs win.

Partick Thistle took Rangers all the way to extra-time in the league cup on Wednesday night. Assistant boss Ally McCoist spoke on his 46th birthday of how the side were poor in front of goal so they don't exactly travel East firing on all cylinders. Hibs have had a full week to prepare for this one since their challenge in the competition ended in the previous round. All things point to a difficult day for Rangers.