Here are all the matches and odds for these five games, the odds are picked from bwin-football-betting-tips:

Blackburn vs. Bolton, odds: home win 2.00  draw 3.30  away win 3.60

Aston Villa vs. Burnley, odds: home win 1.35  draw 4.50 away win 8.50

Fulham vs. Birmingham City, odds: home win 2.05  draw 3.25  away win 3.50

Manchester City vs. Liverpool FC, odds: home win 2.60   draw 3.20   away win 2.60

Wigan Athletic vs. Tottenham Hotspurs, odds: home win 3.55   draw 3.30  away win 2.00

I will start to give you my two best bettingtips for today’s matches and then analyse the rest of the games and try to sort out how I think it will end and where I think we have potential value bets.

Fulham vs. Birmingham City – bettingtips; Home win @ 2.05 in odds

Fulham has been in a shorter down period some matches ago, but after their win against Burnley with 3 – 0 I think that they are on their way up again. Birmingham on the other side had a brilliant form a couple of matches ago but has lost some games and doesn’t feel just as strong as some weeks ago.

Birmingham City had a strong row with matches without loss (I think they had thirteen games). However, as is often happens with teams less strong squads even Birmingham has come to a point where I think that they will have a tough period in front of them. For example Birmingham lost away against West Ham in their last league game (2 – 0) and only have one win in their last five games.

Fulham is, and have always been this season, a strong side home at Craven Cottage. They have taken points from most of the top teams here at Craven. After Birmingham have started to loose again Fulham is just behind Birmingham in the league table now. Birmingham stands on 9^th place with 37 points and Fulham is on the 10^th place with 34 points before this game. Since Fulham has better goal difference, they will pass Birmingham in the league table if they win today.

Compared to these two teams home / away stats it also feels like it is clear home advantage here. Fulham have won 8 of their 13 matches played at Craven Cottage while Birmingham only has four wins in twelve games away, six looses. Therefore, I think that they have big chances to win against Birmingham City as well. The odds on home win are 2.05 and I find that valuable to put a bet on.

Manchester City vs. Liverpool – bettingtips; Home win @ 2.60 in odds.

A big game just behind top three in the table and this is a vital game in the chase for the forth place in the league. As you all probably know the fourth place even means a ticket to the qualification round to Champions League for the coming year, and that means lots of money for the clubs.

I think that both of these clubs are aiming for the Champions League and almost need to go there to cover up all of the costs. Liverpool has been playing in Champions league for the last 6-7 years and cannot afford to not play in the biggest tourney for club teams.

Nevertheless, this year has been a tough one for Rafa Benitez and his Liverpool and even when they have won games, the play just does not seem satisfied. Manchester City on the other hand has a great record after the Italian manager Roberto Mancini arrived and they have even beaten both Manchester United (in carlings cup), Arsenal (4 – 2 in the league back in autumn) and Chelsea (2 – 1 in the league) this year.

In addition, I do not feel that Liverpool is close to these teams this year and find the odds on home win as a great bet. I think that Liverpool often is overvalued when it comes to betting and odds and this is a great example of that. I would say that about 2.30 would be normal odds on the home win if I decided the odds in this game, but now I am sitting on the other side of the table so I pick this as a bettingtips instead and recommend you to bet on Manchester City today.

In the rest of today’s matches, I think that Aston Villa will beat Burnley easy. Even though the odds seem a bit low I just cannot see them not winning in the battle of top four. Therefore, this is a good bet according to me as well. Burnley is one of the weaker teams in Premier League outside their home ground. Two odds that I feel interesting in this game are hcp (0-1) or halftime / fulltime 1 / 1.

When it comes to Wigan vs. Tottenham and Blackburn vs. Bolton, I find both this games hard to predict and neither of the odds are valuable to place a bet on.

Good Luck with your premier league betting

/Amrish

Bet on Chelsea at 1.70

Football betting odds can often tell you a lot. Chelsea are currently offered at odds of 1.70 which is less than 50% of the current odds for Manchester United at 3.50. For Chelsea to be viewed as twice as likely to win the title as Man Utd at this point of the season tells me that a tip on Chelsea is valid. Due to their imminent transfer ban after the next transfer window I think that they will spend big in January to secure their immediate future and this will only help strengthen their squad.

Bet on Man Utd at 3.50

This is probably the value bet of the current market although they have it all to do to haul back the mighty Chelsea. Wayne Rooney has stepped into the role of principal goalscorer excellently. Whilst the team miss the sheer brilliance of Cristiano Ronaldo, many players who had to assume defensive duties to accommodate Ronaldo are now able to flourish as attacking players once again. I believe that this season may be the one season where Chelsea holds a definite edge as the Man Utd team adjusts. Historically, Man Utd always does well after Christmas so Chelsea will need to win most of their games to win the title. 3.50 may look very high odds for Man Utd to win the league come the end of the season. Today’s news reports that Vidic may want to leave for a warmer climate but he will not be sold before the end of the season so football betting fans should not worry about them selling him during the January transfer window. Manager Alex Ferguson never allows this sort of disruption mid season. The edge Chelsea may have is that they will probably strengthen in January whilst Man Utd probably will not.

Bet on Arsenal at 5.25

Arsene Wenger is currently three points behind Manchester Utd but with a game in hand. They are certainly contenders but have no recognised left back after Keiron Gibbs suffered a broken foot this week. It is devastating for Gibbs who is being watched by Capello for possible late inclusion into the England World Cup squad. First choice left back Gael Clichy is still three weeks away from returning to action. You question whether Arsenal can win the required amount of points to win the Premier League and they lost to Sunderland despite being favourites for that match. They do seem to have a habit of losing winnable matches they should win, a habit not shared by the other top teams.

Bet on Liverpool at 25.00

The newspapers are hammering Liverpool with article after article about manager Rafa Benitez who is again facing the sack after Liverpool exited the Champion’s League in the group stages. This will put great financial strain on the club who are already struggling under large debts and needed the TV revenue from a good Champions League run to help service the debts the club has. Things seem to be going from bad to worse for the Merseysiders and I would not bet on them at the moment even at 34.00. I know from personal experience supporting Newcastle Utd that when off field activities go wrong this is often reflected on the pitch.

Slowly but surely it looks like the 2009/2010 football season will be a two horse race between Chelsea and Manchester Utd. Manchester may rue the decision not to splash some of the cash on a replacement for Ronaldo but are performing well so far. You worry about them if they get an injury crisis and have some important decisions to make regarding long term squad players as Scholes, Van Der Sar, Neville and Giggs are almost at the end of their careers.

My tip for the Premier League at the moment is Chelsea at 1.70.

By Malcolm Clarke