Newcastle United V Fulham (31/08/13)

A round-up of which bookies are offering the best prices for The Toon V Fulham match.

It was hard to take many positives from the match against Morecambe, but if you look at things in terms of the bigger picture, then hopefully Mike Ashley must surely now realise how wrong he is if he thinks out current squad is good enough.

I generally don't take much interest in conspiracy theories, but a mate of mine raised the issue (only half-jokingly) that he wouldn't be surprised if Pardew actually picked his team last night specifically with the purpose in mind of opening Mike Ashley's eyes to reality.

If we look back at the Brighton game back in January then as well as the shockingly poor performance that day by our team made up largely of squad players, one of the other consequences of that match was that we subsequently went out and made a few signings.  Hopefully last night's performance will lead to a similar result with Mike Ashley finally realising what every Toon fan has known all summer.

I don't want to come across as too negative because if our first eleven are fit (and in form) then we can put out a strong team potentially capable of putting a good run of results together.  However, if we get another batch of injuries like last season, then last night should have hopefuly made it very clear to Ashley that if he fails to strengthen our squad then he's taking a big gamble again.

Moving onto Saturday's game, it's very hard to tip the Toon with any real confidence at the moment (other than perhaps for another nil nil draw), so once again I'm instead going to round-up the best prices which various bookies are offering on the Toon.

Newcastle United V West Ham United (24/08/13)

A round-up of which bookies are offering the best prices for The Toon V West Ham match.

After the lack of summer signings and the performance away to Man City, it's hard to be overly confident about the forthcoming season.

Of course it's worth keeping things in perspective and remembering that we were playing one of the best three sides in the country away from home, but even allowing for this you have to ask which match Alan Pardew was watching when he remarked in his post match comments that "we gave a decent account of ourselves in the first half".

We're priced as favourites against West Ham, but it's hard to back us with any great deal of confidence, so once again I'm going to avoid making any predictions on the match.

Instead here's a round-up of which bookies are offering the best odds on various betting markets for The Toon V West Ham match...

Match Betting:

Newcastle - 2.3 (William Hill)
Draw - 3.4 (Coral, Bet Victor, SkyBet, Bet365, Totesport, BetFred, Sporting Bet, Paddy Power)
West Ham - 3.5 (Bet Victor)

Man City V Newcastle United (19/08/13)

A round-up of which bookies are offering the best prices.

We couldn't have been given a tougher opening fixture, and therefore even the biggest optimist would find it hard to confidently tip Newcastle away to Man City.

So instead here's a round-up of which bookies are offering the best odds on various betting markets for The Toon's opening fixture...

Match Betting:

Man City - 1.33 (Coral, Bet Victor, Paddy Power)
Draw - 5.5 (SkyBet, William Hill, Ladbrokes, Bet 365)
Newcastle United - 11.0 (SkyBet)

A Few Daft Novelty Bets...

How do the bookies rate the chances of the Yeti or aliens being discovered?

As there seems to be very little happening in the transfer market at the moment, I've been amusing myself by checking out some of the more unusual bets available from various bookies.

One which caught my eye is for 'the Yeti to be discovered before 2015' which is currently offered at 10.0 by Paddy Power.  Of course that's a fairly ridiculous bet so the odds of 10.0 might not be very tempting.

If you're therefore looking for a longer priced bet then how about a bet on aliens to be proven to exist?  That's available from Paddy Power at a slightly more generous 26.0, so the bookies apparently reckon that aliens are even less likely than Bigfoot to be discovered.

Reasons To Be Cheerful...

Miscellaneous Toon Bets For 2013/14

I think it's fair to say that so far this summer hasn't gone the way most of us would have liked, with the appointment of Joe Kinnear and the lack of signings being the two most obvious disappointments.

However, the optimist in me always wants to find reasons to be cheerful and so I've been looking at the odds involving the Toon for the coming season in various betting markets to see if we can take encouragement from the bookies' level of confidence in us.

I have to admit there aren't overwhelming reasons to be confident, but here are a few odds to take slight encouragement from...

1) Top North East Club

Despite Sunderland making several signings, every bookie offering odds on the 'Top North East Club' have us as favourites to finish above Sunderland.  That's SkyBet, William Hill, Paddy Power, Totesport, YouWin, BoyleSports, BetFred and Ladbrokes who all think we'll finish above Sunderland.

If you fancy a bet on Newcastle to be the Top North East Club then the best odds are currently offered by SkyBet who have us priced at 1.8.*

* Please note, SkyBet also include Hull in their 'Top North East Club' market.

Who Will Leave Newcastle First?

Pardew V Kinnear

You can bet on pretty much everything nowadays and Paddy Power were recently offering a market on who will be the first to leave Newcastle United, Alan Pardew or Joe Kinnear?

A recent poll on The Mag suggested that fans think Pardew will leave the club before Kinnear and the bookies seem to agree with the odds as follows:

Alan Pardew - 1.5
Joe Kinnear - 2.5

Joe Kinnear's appointment was initially greeted with silence from Alan Pardew, and when he did eventually comment, he wasn't exactly overwhelming in his support of Kinnear with Pardew declaring himself to be 'open-minded' about the appointment.  Given that Pardew generally toes the party line, that's a pretty damning criticism of Kinnear.

Maybe Graham Carr should take a look at Plateau United Feeders as we search for our next goal scorer?

With goal difference at stake, it was important to get as many goals as possible...

Police Machine FC only have themselves to blame for missing
out on promotion after such a disappointingly narrow victory.

Slightly off topic here, but this is a story which made me laugh so I thought I would mention it anyway.

In a lower division of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) two teams, Plateau United Feeders and Police Machine FC, were battling for promotion and as they were level on points it looked like it could all potentially come down to goal difference.  It was therefore vitally important to approach their final games with an attacking mentality and go looking for goals.

As it turned out both teams managed to get the big victories they were hoping for with the scores as follows: