Friday Football Tips: Shoot for profit in Bournemouth v Baggies

Bournemouth v West Brom
Friday August 6, 19:45
Sky Sports

Football is back! Proper football some might call it. We love all football around here but it is nice to get the English football season back underway with a bang between two big Championship promotion rivals.

Bournemouth of course have Scott Parker in charge now, who I thought did pretty well at Fulham and should get the Cherries challenging for promotion again this season - they probably got it wrong by leaving Eddie Howe's assistant Jason Tindall in charge last term.

Friday's visitors West Brom are favoured to make an immediate return to the Premier League under former Barnsley boss Valerien Ismael - the Baggies have become used to all this having been relegated twice and promoted once in just four seasons.

Anyway, for more on how the game will go read Mark O'Haire's excellent match preview here.

For our column, we're trying to bring you the best of the stats-based bets or player props, and although it's the first game of the season we have plenty to go on with the main protagonists in this game.

First games of the season are always tricky, especially for relegated Premier League sides, who can get caught out by the different style of football in the Championship, but this is a decent game for West Brom as it'll be more like a top flight game such is Bournemouth's quality and style.

It should make for an open contest, and the Cherries have already signaled their intent for the season by hammering MK Dons 5-0 in the EFL Cup.

West Brom haven't played a competitive game yet but for their part they enjoyed at 4-0 win at Birmingham in their final pre-season outing.

And our best bet revolves around two players who both scored in their last games - with West Brom's Grady Diangana the man who could step into Matheus Pereira's shoes long-term with the Brazilian keen to leave.

For Bournemouth, David Brooks is a player with a load of quality and he showed some of that with two goals against MK Dons.

He's had his injury problems, but after a full season under his belt last campaign he can really kick on this term - he's got two great feet, can travel with the ball and also, crucially, isn't afraid of having a shot.

He had 22 shots on target last season and had four from six shots overall against MK Dons.

In a game that could have plenty of flow to it, Brooks and Diangana have every opportunity to land at a decent price thanks to them being the subject of a 5.04/1 OddsBoost on the Sportsbook.