Pay as you lay / Andrew Atherley / 26 February 2010 / Leave a comment " class="free-bet-btn" rel="external" onclick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/G4/inline-freebet');" target="_blank">Free Bet View Market

Every week Andrew Atherley will be selecting three odds-on shots worth laying. But there's a catch: he only gets paid by betting.betfair.com if at least two prove to be winning bets. This week's selections are kicked off by a recommendation to go "overs" at Turf Moor.

"Bottom-of-the-table clashes are usually expected to produce low-scoring games, but there is enough uncertainty about this game to make any short price one to be wary of. If Portsmouth going into administration demoralises the players even more, there is the chance they could fall apart and lose heavily."

Lay under 2.5 goals at [1.75] in Burnley v Portsmouth

Bottom-of-the-table clashes are usually expected to produce low-scoring games, but there is enough uncertainty about this game to make any short price one to be wary of. If Portsmouth going into administration demoralises the players even more, there is the chance they could fall apart and lose heavily. That's one way there could be a high-scoring game, but even assuming that both teams play to type this has the possibility to go over 2.5 goals. Burnley's strength is all at home and that is reflected in the fact that they have scored in every home game, though they have also conceded in nine out of 12. Notably, Portsmouth have the best head-to-head record in bottom-six clashes this season, winning three out of five and scoring in four of them. With a good chance of both teams scoring, under 2.5 goals looks too short.

Lay Juventus at [1.81] v Palermo

If at first you don't succeed . . . Having laid Juventus a couple of weeks ago and seen them scrape a 3-2 win over Genoa - a match in which they fell behind and were still level with 12 minutes to go until a controversial penalty gave them victory - they look a team to oppose again. They have the profile of a team that will nearly always be too short and this match looks especially tough, against a Palermo side that is only a point behind them in the table. Juventus rank only 13th on home form, with less than a 50% win rate, and Palermo have had some decent results on the road, including a 2-0 win at Milan and draws at Napoli and Sampdoria - all teams that are among the top eight at home.

Lay Lille at [1.69] v Auxerre

Here's another match between two top-six sides where the market is too strongly in favour of the home team. Lille are third, five points ahead of sixth-placed Auxerre, and they are unbeaten in six league and Europa League games, but most of those games have been low-scoring - typical of French teams - and the margins are so tight that backing them at short odds-on is a risk. Auxerre are the sort of team that are adept at taking something in a low-scoring game - they have lost only one of their last nine league games (six of those games were goalless or had only one goal). The aberration in that recent run was the shock 5-0 defeat at rock-bottom Grenoble, which was way out of character. Perhaps complacency was at the root of that defeat, but in any case low-scoring Lille are unlikely to run away with this one.

Tags: Juventus fixtures, Portsmouth football club, Premier League football, Serie A bets