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05/07/2010 - London, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chelsea is just one win away from claiming its third Premiership title in six years, and with a home contest against bottom-half side Wigan on Sunday, the Blues will be firm favorites to get the win.
Chelsea is coming off of a 2-0 win over Liverpool at Anfield last time out, and manager Carlo Ancelotti is hoping that his players will approach this Sunday's match in the same way they prepared for the Reds.
"I saw my players focused during the week and they knew very well how important the game was," Ancelotti said of the Liverpool game. "This weekend is the same, to be champions we have to play as we played against Liverpool.
"We have to maintain the same confidence in our play, the same determination because nothing is decided. We have to pay a lot of attention because there are not other games, if you miss this game you do not have the possibility of recovery.
"We are in a very good situation, we wanted to arrive at the end of the season with more points but we can decide our destiny in our home at Stamford Bridge so this is a good thing."
Wigan may have just secured safety, but they have vowed to make things difficult for Chelsea, and they will be hoping for a repeat of their 3-1 win over the Blues at the DW Stadium in September.
In addition to their win over Ancelotti's men, the Latics have beaten Arsenal and Liverpool as well, and defender Mario Melchiot feels that his team is in a good position to pull off another upset.
"You look at the teams we've beaten like Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool, and take all the stuff we've done. I think it's looking really good for us," said Melchiot, a former Chelsea defender.
"The Premier League has been very exciting this season. Everybody can beat each other and that's a situation that's developing all the time."
Manchester United enters the final day one point back of Chelsea, and they will be hoping that Wigan can take at least a draw away from Stamford Bridge, which would allow United to claim a fourth successive title with a win over Stoke City.
Arsenal can lock up third place with a win at home against Fulham, while Tottenham visits Burnley having already secured the fourth and final Champions League spot, allowing Spurs to make their first ever appearance in the competition.
Manchester City has to settle for a place in the Europa League after their 1-0 defeat to Tottenham in midweek, and the Citizens will finish up their season at West Ham, while sixth-placed Aston Villa hosts Blackburn.
Liverpool's disappointing campaign comes to an end at relegated Hull City, Bolton hosts Birmingham, Portsmouth visits Everton and Sunderland travels to Wolverhampton.
<< Morneau healthy and carrying Twins
Toronto, Canada (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - American League pitchers and a nagging back
haven't been able to slow down Justin Morneau, and Joe Mauer's heel injury
likely won't either.
The first baseman's production didn't suffer last season while Mau
<< Motherwell eyes Europa League spot
Glasgow, Scotland (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Motherwell needs a win over Rangers on
Sunday to clinch fourth place in the Scottish Premier League and secure a spot
in the Europa League for next season.
But if they are successful, they can point
<< Lipscomb F Hodzic withdraws from NBA Draft
Nashville, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Lipscomb University forward Adnan Hodzic has
withdrawn from the 2010 NBA Draft and will return to the school for his senior
season.
Hodzic had entered the draft on April 8, but did not hire an agent.
"By
<< Lyon desperate to get back to Champions League
Valenciennes, France (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - After reaching the semifinals of the
Champions League for the first time in club history, Lyon is eager to return
to Europe's premier club competition, but they must first get back into the
top thr
NL West: Andre's been a giant for Dodgers >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - When the Chicago Bulls needed a shot in the clutch the
entire universe knew who was getting the ball.
Baseball is a bit different and fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers have been
getting their own Michael Jordan-l
Barry's World Cup campaign in doubt >>
Manchester, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Manchester City midfielder Gareth Barry
is a major doubt for England's World Cup squad after being ruled out for four
weeks with ankle ligament damage.
City boss Roberto Mancini has revealed the in
Mancini: Tevez will stay at City >>
Manchester, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini
has revealed that leading striker Carlos Tevez is more than happy to stay at
the club, despite failing to land Champions League football next term.
The Argenti
Ancelotti expects Cole stay >>
London, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti believes
Joe Cole will remain at the Stamford Bridge outfit next season despite being
out of contract in the summer.
Talks over new terms have been placed on hold unt
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
In any football or basketball game (the main sports that use point spreads) there are two teams playing against each other.
Those teams, though, are rarely exactly evenly matched – meaning that typically one team has a better chance than the other to win the game. If bettors were allowed to bet on who was simply going to win the game, smart ones would obviously bet on the better team (likely winning more than 50% of the time in the process).
If winning were that easy the Las Vegas and online sportsbooks would stop taking any bets! This is where the point spread comes in: the basic function of the point spread is to balance the likelihood of each team “winning” by adjusting the final score by the point spread. After this adjustment is made you get the Against The Spread result (ATS result for short).
Let’s look at Super Bowl XXXIX, New England Patriots vs. Philadelphia Eagles. Most people believed the defending champ Patriots to be the better team – so if betting were simply based upon which team would win the game, an uneven majority of people would have wagered on New England. But, by using the point spread, the bookmakers adjusted the terms of the bet, evening the proposition so about half the people believed the Pats to be the smart bet, while the other half considered Philly to be the smart bet.
New England Patriots -7 vs. Philadelphia Eagles
The better team, called the Favorite, is expected to win the game and must “give” or “lay” points to the weaker team. The favorite is listed with a minus sign and the number of points they are favored by (e.g., New England -7)
In the case of our example, New England must not only win the game, but they must win by more than 7 points for Pats bettors to have a winning ATS result. An Eagles bettor wins his bet either if:
There was also the possibility that the final score could land exactly on the spread number (for example, the Pats winning 28-21 when -7), which is called a “push” or “no action” and a refund is then issued to bettors of both teams.
The same game with the same point spread can be considered from the weaker team’s perspective: The Underdog (Philly in the case of our example) is not expected to win the game and online football betting thus receives or “gets” points given by the stronger team. When a game is stated from the underdog’s perspective the team is listed with a plus sign and the number of points they are underdogs by:
Philadelphia Eagles +7 vs. New England Patriots
Keep in mind that Philadelphia +7 and New England -7 is the same point spread on the same game, simply stated differently. The first is from the underdog’s perspective; the later is from the favorite’s.
Not a must, but for some a mathematical approach is insightful. You can determine the ATS winner by either:
Let’s look at the actual result of Super Bowl XXXIX: New England 24 Philadelphia 21
The favorite, New England, won the game but not by more than the point spread they were favored by (7), so the ATS result was a LOSS for Pats bettors.
Looking at it from the underdog’s perspective, Philly did not win the game, but they lost by less than the point spread (7), so the ATS result was a WIN for Eagle bettors.
Mathematically considered, 24 for the favorite Pats minus 7 equals 17, which is less than the 20 the Eagles scored, so the underdog Eagles win the ATS result (or you could figure 20 plus 7 equals 27 for the Eagles, which is more than 24 for the Pats).
Emily’s boyfriend understood the point spread and wagered $100 on the Eagles at +7. The Eagles may not have gotten a Super Bowl ring, but since they won the ATS result Emily’s boyfriend cashed his bet – giving him money to take her out to a nice dinner.
And now hopefully you understand how to read point spreads, putting you one step closer to joining the fun of sports betting.
To visit this internet sportsbook go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting and World Series odds.
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