Premiership / Andrew Atherley / 17 March 2010 / Leave a comment Bet Now

Andrew Atherley crunches some more numbers to offer us some more potentially profitable betting angles, this time focussing on Chelsea's away record.

If Carlo Ancelotti is still trying to work out where Chelsea are going wrong on the road, he might like to fix his thoughts on improving his team's second-half performance level.

Chelsea's 2-0 win at Wolves in their latest Premier League away game was only their second in seven trips since their impressive 3-0 victory at Arsenal on November 29. That poor away run - during which their only two wins have come against teams in the bottom four - has undermined Chelsea's title challenge and exposed a weakness that punters can exploit in the in-play markets.

The win at Wolves was built on an opening goal from Didier Drogba in the 40th minute and Chelsea duly went on make it five out of five on the road when going in with a half-time lead.

If Chelsea are ahead at half-time on the road, they are bankers - just as Manchester United are, with four wins out of four, and Arsenal a little less so (four wins out of six). Pre-match, one way of exploiting those stats is to back Chelsea win-win in the Half Time/Full Time market, as that will pay better than the straight win and the stats say that if Chelsea aren't winning at half-time, they are unlikely to win the match.

In the early betting for Sunday's visit to Blackburn, Chelsea are [1.49] for the win but a more attractive [2.26] for the win-win.

The problem for Ancelotti is that Chelsea's second-half performances on the road do not measure up when they don't hold a half-time lead and they have been a team to lay when failing to establish a winning position by half-time.

From a position of half-time parity, Chelsea have won only one out of six away this season, compared with four out of eight for United and three out of six for Arsenal.
Chelsea average just one point per game when not leading at half-time, against a more healthy 1.56 for Arsenal and 1.27 for United.

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Who's the best team in the bottom six of the Premier League? The full Premier League table says it's certainly not Portsmouth, who are five points adrift at the bottom and are eight points from safety with just nine games to play.

Yet the mini-league of games involving only the bottom six shows Portsmouth on top - with four wins, two draws and just one defeat from seven games played - and they have another match in that category this weekend when they host second-bottom Hull.

It is always interesting to dig a little deeper to find form pointers that might otherwise be missed and this looks a good one. Hull have won only one of their seven games against the other bottom-six teams and, while they have lost only two, the defeats came on the road.

On that basis, Portsmouth look reasonable value at [2.24] to beat Hull on Saturday.

There is another notable aspect to this form line. Portsmouth have kept four clean sheets in their seven games against bottom-six teams, conceding only four goals, while Hull have conceded in six out of seven, including all three on the road.

Portsmouth's strong defensive record in this category means their two home wins have been by decisive margins (4-0 and 2-0) while Hull's two away defeats have been clear-cut too (3-0 and 2-0). At upwards of -0.5 on the Asian handicap, Portsmouth could have added value than the straight win.