We have hit the ground running this morning with both J-League bets winning ( see below), Urawa won 3-1 and the Jubio-Yokohama game, which is being played as I type, had three goals in the opening 22 minutes . Still a lot to do today, with another six match previews for clubgowi subscribers featuring matches from, England, France, the US and Italy .
You can read one of those below.....
We have sided with the Toffees quite a bit this season, but I think always on the road , they are ideally set up to play away and at Goodison, they too often press the self destruct button and it is too easy for brittle confidence to get the better of them and offer opponents something to feed off . Everton are not as good as they should be, the squad is talented and has more depth than in recent campaigns, but we have seen them put in a performance only rarely and almost never on home soil, where they have beaten only one team outside the relegation zone all season and only Aston Villa have collected fewer home points. Today they will have to do without the suspended James McCarthy and the hosts have won just 3 of 21 EPL starts (3-18-10) when he plays 45 minutes or less, all three wins in that sequence came against teams in the drop zone.
This season is all about the FA Cup now for Everton and they will have not just one eye on that Wembley semi final with Manchester United next weekend, but another on the Merseyside derby game with Liverpool on Wednesday ! Three games in the next eight days and this is clearly the least important and one through which they will be mindful of the other two fixtures. They also played 40 minutes at Crystal Palace in midweek with ten men , after Mccarthy was dismissed and Saints have had a free seven days to prepare and have only had to leave the South Coast once previously in the last five weeks, so they will be as fresh as any team in the EPL can be in mid April. The visitors are an established top ten team in the EPL nowadays and probably a little better than that and they are very tight defensively, with only Tottenham and Manchester City having conceded fewer away goals. I spoke about their lack of goal threat recently, writing ahead of a home game with Sunderland early last month ......... Saints are without Charlie Austin and Shane Long upfront and Graziano Pelle and Sadio Mane have not scored a goal between them in over four months and are not going to strike fear into the hearts of many EPL defences currently.
That worked out well enough for us, but Long is back now and the hard working tireless forward has eight goals for the seaon (six since Boxing Day) amd Mane has broken his duck with two goals and Pellè has scored four goals and assisted for three more in his last four EPL starts and both he and Long are looking to beat personal top flight scoring records, need one and three respectively and are "hungry".
1.5 units Southampton -0.25 ball 2.16 asian line/Sportmarket.
J-League:
Urawa Red Diamonds-Vegalta Sendai
I skipped opposing Vegalta Sendai last week at home to Gamba Osaka and they were three down and game over inside 15 minutes, re-enforcing the very negative opinion I got of them in a similarly heavy defeat at Sanfrecce Hiroshima the previous week . Gamba did little to boost the formline earlier today and deserved to lose to Reysol. Now Vegalta have to play another top team for the third game running and it will be very difficult for them to stem the tide. Urawa have won this fixture for the last two seasons by a combined 7-1 , this is a traditionally high scoring series and the matches in Sendai have tended to get a litte wild and crazy, the games in Saitama less so, but if today is going to get out of hand, you can really only see one team doing the damage and Sendai look terribly vulnerable at present.
They lost three starting defenders in the off season and the replacements looked like they met for the first time on the train ride to Hiroshima and they have conceded two or more goals in four of their six starts. They ended last season poorly finishing Stage 2 in 16th, losing a league high 11 starts and playing on a par with the three relegated clubs, well adrift of the rest of J-L1 and appear to have brought that form into the new campaign. Vegalta they have dug themselves out of trouble in the last three "leagues" winning just 1/10 at the start of 2014, 2/11 to open Stage 1 in 2015 and 2/13 in Stage 2 and I think getting themselves out of a deep hole a fourth time is a big ask as they have now been playing poorly for too long. To add to their problems , the visitors arrive with a lengthy injury list and the only real question today is will Urawa win by more than a single goal ? My answer has to be in the affirmative !
1.5 units Urawa Reds -1.5 goals 2.10-2.20 general quote.
Jubilo Iwata-Yokohama F.Marinos
I was quite pleased with my early season notes on Jubilo Iwata and star striker Jay Bothroyd.............
They (Reysol) created plenty of chances in that and will be looking to kick start their season against another new JL1 team in Jubilo Iwata, but one whom I feel will score plenty of goals this season, they came up short in their home opener, but scored twice to win at Urawa Reds last week and were boosted by having Jay Bothroyd on the bench, after he had to sit out matchday 1. The former England international is in his second season with Jubilo, he was top scorer in J2 last season and his movement, height (1.91m) and pace, which he has not lost at 33yo, will see him pose a huge threat at the higher level if Iwata supply the ammunition and there was every indication that would be the case in Saitama. He got 21 minutes off the bench and need just 13 of those to find a goal and winner, using his size to hold off his marker. At his peak he would have been two levels above this standard, he looks rejuvenated and a lot of older players thrive in J-League, he has the quality to make as big an impact in League 1 as he did in the second tier and it will exciting to follow his progress. Goals for both, pretty sure of that, this is traditionally a high scoring fixture, with the last ten h2h meetings averaging 3.5 goals per game and Jubilo have scored three goals on each of their last three trips to Chiba.
They are unbeaten in five starts since, scoring nine goals and Bothroyd has six of those at the rate of one every 57 minutes (!) and is top J-League goalscorer and could hardly have made a bigger impact. I really hope that Jubilo continue to look to entertain and attack teams, as we see far too little of that from newly promoted clubs, who too often arrive in the top flight with an inferiority complex. The one thing Jubilo do not have yet is a clean sheet and if Marinos do not arrive with too negative an approach, which they can sometimes be guilty of, there should be goals in this for both. There is no real need for Yokohama to play scared, as they have five goals in three away starts, including two at Gamba and this is a chance for them to establish themselves as Stage 1 challengers.
1.5 units "over" 2.5 goals 2.20-2.25 general quote.
Good Luck.
