Football Bet of the Day: No Velodrome drama

• Marseille stung by PSG loss

• Annecy have struggled on the road all season

Marseille v Annecy
Wednesday 01 March, 20:00

I'd like to announce that I've been hired as a motivational coach by Serie A strugglers Cremonese, as me tipping their opponents Roma sparked the bottom side in Serie A's first league victory of the season. The capital club lost 2-1 yesterday, and Jose Mourinho was so angry that our bet lost that he was sent off.

We'll head to France now, because a wounded Marseille are up against Annecy in the Coupe de France, and I'm backing the home side to make a statement.

Marseille went into Le Classique at the weekend hoping they could beat their old foes PSG and catapult themselves into the title race in Ligue 1. As it turned out, Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi combined in devastating fashion to spark a 3-0 win and leave l'OM eight points adrift of top spot.

However, all is not lost, because Marseille's 2-1 win over PSG in the Coupe de France has given them a great chance of winning the competition, and tonight they face Annecy. All I know about Annecy is that it's where kids from my school used to go on their French exchange trips, but they have been on the rise football-wise for a while. Last term they were promoted from the third tier, and they are in a healthy mid-table position in Ligue 2 at present. However, they have needed penalty shootouts to squeeze through their last two ties against Belfort and Paris FC.

Annecy have only won twice on the road all season in the league, they have leaked 13 goals in their last five Ligue 2 away games, and they should be outclassed here. We can back Marseille -2.0 on the Asian Handicap at 1.875/6 - if Marseille win by two goals we have our stake returned, but a bigger win gives us a full pay-out.