Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: Up £200.37

Sometimes this betting malarkey feels like the hokey-pokey. One foot forward, one foot back. But provided the movements aren’t damaging our profit margin too much, we continue to be buoyed in our belief that we can take the bookies to the cleaners.

Last weekend again proved a mixed batch of betting predictions.

On the plus side, our England/Wayne Rooney double proved dead-on, while over in North Africa history was maintained as Egypt continued their record of having never won in Algiers, losing 3-1 to African minnows Algeria.

On the negative, North Korea may have blown their World Cup dreams by drawing a blank with Iran, while Croatia’s draw with the Ukraine spoiled our Croatia/Serbia double.

In all we recorded just under a £2 loss in the last few days.

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Monday night sees’ Stuart Pearce’s Young Lions play host to Azerbaijan U21, England’s last warm-up match ahead of the U21 European Championships which begin next week in Sweden. Heading to Scandinavia with hopes of claiming the trophy, the Azerbaijanis should pose no real threat to the English having finished bottom of their European Championship qualifying group losing seven of their 10 fixtures.

Expecting England to stroll to victory but hedging our bets on the actual result, we are placing three separate flutters, each of £3, on an England win (1/9) and each of a 2-nil scoreline (5/1), 3-nil scoreline (11/2), and 4-nil (7/1) victory. Depending on the result, a 2-nil win will produce a £20 return, 3-nil amounts to a £21.67 return, while 4-nil will pay out a £26.67 return.

International football continues on Wednesday night at Wembley as England welcomes one of world football’s most pathetic nations to play under the iconic arch: Andorra. With England a joke 1/200 to win with the bookies, making money on this match involves punters getting a little creative, with the most attractive markets being those for the correct score and predicting who will be the goalscorers for the Three Lions.

During the sluggish first half in Kazakhstan, Steven Gerrard was the catalyst for turning the match in Capello’s favour although the Reds’ skipper missed out on grabbing a goal himself. Looking to put this right back on home soil, we are betting two separate £3 bets on both Gerrard to score (10/11) with England winning 3-nil (11/2), and for Gerrard to score with England winning 4-nil (9/2).

The first option brings a reward of a £37.23 payout, while the second bet would produce a £31.50 return.