Blue Square Bet South Season Preview 12/13

-
Blue Square Bet South Season Preview by Alan Alger from Blue Square Bet

Blue Square Bet SouthWoking were well backed winners of the Blue Square Bet South last season and the writing was on the wall for us bookmakers before Christmas. Runaway champions are not uncommon in the section, but to look at the contenders each year you would always expect it to be close. Again we are at odds with our competitors in having a different favourite to the rest of the industry for this coming campaign.

Big spending Eastleigh are our market leaders at 4/1 after acquiring a first-team squad littered with players that could perform at least one rung higher in the pyramid. Dover Athletic will feel that they’ve under-achieved in coming 7th two seasons running and surely won’t settle for any less than a play-off spot. Nicky Forster’s team are our 9/2 second-favourites, just half a point bigger than Ian Baird’s Spitfires!

Play-Off final losers Welling United have improved their position by 3 places each of the last three seasons to finish 9th, 6th then 3rd. Jamie Day is a good young manager and will have to cope with keeping his player’s heads held high to bounce back from that defeat at Dartford in which they would concede they were a long way off the pace. The Wings are 8/1 along with Chelmsford City who have gone the other way in terms of year-on-year performance. Form figures of 3rd, 4th then 6th last season suggest they have suffered from the league becoming stronger.

Punters who backed Havant & Waterlooville last season – and there are always plenty of them - knew their fate early last Autumn. They are 12/1 to improve under the new regime of Stuart Ritchie after finishing a disastrous 19th last time out. Bromley’s finish in 17th last season was their lowest in the division since promotion five seasons ago from the Ryman Premier. The previous four campaigns saw them finish between 11th and 13th each time. Mark Goldberg’s side are our biggest liability in the division though after being well backed to challenge for promotion. Our price of 80/1 has been shortened to 66/1 and any more money before next Saturday’s kick-off will prompt another reduction in their price.

Marcus Gayle takes over at Staines Town and we are keeping them relatively short at 20/1 with the former AFC Wimbledon reserve manager having a big chance of sparking a turnaround with the new players he has brought in. Hayes & Yeading United are also respected in our list at 16/1 with a squad that could challenge for a trend-breaking immediate return to the Premier division under the impressive Nas Bashir.

ALAN’S TIPS

CHAMPIONS – EASTLEIGH

Play-Off Teams – Dover Athletic, Welling United, Basingstoke Town, Hayes & Yeading United.

Remember you can earn money for your club when you register and place bets with Blue Square Bet – visitwww.bluesq.com/fans for more details.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Deal sealed with Lawshield

-
Image
Eastleigh Football Club are delighted to unveil Lawshield as sponsors for the South Stand (opposite the clubhouse end) at the Silverlake Stadium for the 2012-2013 season. Lawshield have signed a deal with the club which sees the stand rebranded the Lawshield Stand and we hope the fans will embrace the newly named ‘Lawshield End'. Lawshield Managing Director Ken Specter commented:"It gives us great pleasure to continue our association with Eastleigh Football Club - we wish the whole team, both on the pitch and behind the scenes at the club all the best for the forthcoming season". Lawshield specialise in providing quality insurance products which are underwritten by leading insurers. Their products and services offer comprehensive cover and a seamless integrated service solution to Insurers, Brokers, Fleet Managers and Affinities. They provide a one stop shop offering outsourced claims assistance solutions for household insurance and personal/commercial motor insura
Read more

Richard Hill

-
Image
Eastleigh Football Club are delighted to announce Richard Hill as their new first team manager, with immediate effect. Richard will be introduced to the players and staff tomorrow evening and will take charge of his first match on Saturday against Maidenhead. Richard is vastly experienced having managed Stevenage Borough and assisted John Gregory at both Wycombe and QPR, Brian Little at Aston Villa and also fulfilled the same roles at Gillingham, Tranmere Rovers and Northampton Town. It is a new era for the football club and we feel that in appointing Richard we have made the right choice. We are confident that he has all the attributes necessary to ensure the football club continues to develop and move forward in the correct manner. Stewart Donald added ‘I am delighted that we have been able to appoint Richard so quickly. He is exactly the calibre of Manager I wanted. Like all managers that inherit a team, there will be a transitional period while he familiarises himself with
Read more

Eastleigh 3-1 Newport County

-
Image
EASTLEIGH V NEWPORT COUNTY MONDAY 12th MARCH 2007 Conference South So far so good, as Eastleigh pressed on with their busy schedule with a second comprehensive win in as many days. Yet another classy performance from the Spitfires saw them come out firing on all cylinders finding themselves two goals to the good in the blink of an eye, and just like they did in the Farnborough match at the weekend, they comfortably saw the game out. The only change from the winning side, saw Liam Green replace the injured David Hughes in the centre of midfield. Newport were panicking from the start with the excellent Steve Watts and Jamie Brown letting their presence be felt up the front, giving their opponents no time on the ball. The constant chasing down and pressure from the two Eastleigh forwards almost led to catastrophe in the third minute for Newport, as Stewart Edwards played across his own goal with his keeper missing the ball before it was eventually hacked away. Scorer of Eastl
Read more