Saturday, July 07, 2012

HAPPY HOUR, LAST CHANCE SALOON, THE SHIP WILL HAVE SAILED ...........

Roger Federer became the first man in history to reach eight Wimbledon Singles finals yesterday, but that goes almost without mention as every single UK newspape rhas the same tennis front page story and that is Andy Murray, the first Briton in the final since 1938, ending 74 years of hurt ! Goodness knows what the media attention will be like if he wins !

Last British player in the final was Bunny Austin, also the first man to wear shorts at Wimbledon !

I previewed three J-League games today, the Ladies Singles final and also looked at two of tonights MLS fixtures, where I have my strongest news of the day.

The J-League previews were .....

J-LEAGUE:

KASHIMA REYSOL - NAGOYA GRAMPUS

Hard not to see goals here and both making a contribution, hosts have scored in their last ten starts, 24 goals in total, Nagoya have scored in 9 from 10 J-League games, 16 in total and have scored six in their last three road games.
H2h record sees the last ten meetings averaging 3.1 goals and both have scored in eight of those.

Kashiwa Reysol defender Hiroki Sakai has now moved to Germany, no injury problems for them otherwise, hard to see how an already porous defence, no team outside the bottom five have conceded more, is going to be less so with the loss of such a key right sided defender.

The situation is unchanged at Nagoya, Keiji Tamada, Naoshi Nakamura and Ryota Isomura all remain out, but have been missing for some time, very experienced goalkeeper Seigo Narazaki had a small knee operation, but is still hopeful of playing, but his loss will not harm any bets on this game, which have to be of the goals variety.

Both teams look far happier on the front foot and will surely be looking for the three points that will keep them in the title hunt. The visitors will lose top scorer Kensuke Nagai (8 goals) to the Olympics after today and play the league leaders next week. I think they will be especially motivated today, they can score a couple and if the 2.30 for them to do so was freely available, that would be my pick. Instead I will have to opt for over 3 goals @ circa 1.95 on the asian market. 

SANFRECCE HIROSHIMA - JUBILO IWATA

Visistors stopped the rot with a win over FC Tokyo last week, but I have to feel that had more to do with their opponents form and it may just have papered over the cracks, Jubilo have conceded ten goals in their last four starts and will sorely miss Baek Sung Dong ( 2 goals - six assists) and as discussed last week, they have scored two or more goals in every match where he has played at least an hour. They will also be without keeper Naoki Hatta and his experienced back up, a long term injury still keeps striker Hidetaka Kanazono out.

Hosts are without defender Hwang Seok Ho who has gone off with the Korean Olympic team already, midfielder Satoru Yamagishi is a big doubt. Plenty of goals when these two play, they both sit in the top three and are two of the top three scorers also, but defensively, Jubilo look far more vunerable at present and when they lose on the road, it is normally with the concession of quite a few goals. I like Hiroshima to win this at around the even money mark and feel they might score a few, 3.50 + for them to score three or more appeals.
YOKOHAMA MARINOS- CEREZO OSAKA
Goals remain a huge problem for Marinos, just two in their last five league starts, however, they have gone unbeaten over that sequence with four draws and a 1-0 win over a flagging FCTokyo, but as I said last week that can only carry on for so long and sooner or later, they need to start scoring more freely They will again miss injured captain Shunsuke Nakamura today, he has made a big contribution to their tiny goals scored column and it is very hard to see the hosts scoring more than a single goal.

Cerezo Osaka have sold midfielder Hiroshi Kiyotake ( 2 goals - 4 assists) to FC Nuremberg and his hugely influential partner Kim Bo Kyung ( 7 goals - 2 assists) has joined the Korean Olympic team . They are big losses, but things will get worse for them shortly as Yamaguchi and Ogihari will also be off to the Olympics after today, so sitting just one place, albeit five points outside the drop zone, they really need a result today and to retain that security buffer.

Hard to see either scoring twice and when that is the case, the draw is the obvious option and makes most appeal here at odds of circa 3.60.


Three goals in the Kashima game, with Nagoya scoring two !

Hiroshima won 2-0 and Yokohama and Cerezo drew 1-1 !

These were the only three J- League matches previewed today !

They made up around one third of the content of one email, there are around 500 emails per year and they cost around , well basically, nothing each ! Probably an amount most of you would not bother to pick up if you dropped it in the street !

One "happy hour" tomorrow Sunday ( contact me ..... gowi8@btinternet.com  for details of that) , after that, no more opportunities to sign up cheaply to the service, that's it, last chance saloon, whatever you wish to call it, the ship will have sailed !

Good Luck.











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