Morning all.

Apologies for a full week of radio silence, it has been a rather busy one with work.

Fear not, I did have a decent look through the midweek games but nothing caught my eye.  No doubt everyone was all over the Villa 6 – 4 Blackburn result though?  You’d have to be a complete idiot to not have seen that one coming.

The FA Cup is “getting in the way” of the Premiership games again this week, but that is rarely where my selections come from anyway.  There is a almost a full complement of lower league games so we are in luck.

My selection for today is Southport to beat Telford, in the Blue Square North, no less.  I don’t normally go this far down the leagues, but this price is too good to ignore.

Once you see through the “games-in-hand” imbalance (which is bad in such leagues at any point in time, never mind immediately following the biggest cold snap in 30 years!), you can make a strong case for Southport being favourites for the BSN title.

They have a fantastic home record (9/2/1/+23) and recently battered current league leaders, and local rivals, Fleetwood Town 5 – 0 at Haigh Avenue.

Telford’s performance this season is deceiving.  Although they boast one of the leagues better away records with 5 wins, a total line of 5/1/6/-7  paints a slightly different picture.

They currently lie 9th in the table, however once you remove the impact of the fixture imbalance and a couple of teams with point deductions for financial problems they would be looking at being around 12th or 13th int he league.

Although it is difficult to have 100% visibility in the build up to such games, I can find no sensible reason as to why this game has been priced up at 8/11.

I did have a hunt around for some other stuff, and for a while was tempted by Yeovil to beat Exeter at what seems a large price.

However, I have decided against it in the end.  Today is one of those days where I struggle to justify putting a point anywhere else other than on Southport!

BOTW: 3pts on Southport to beat AFC Telford @ 8/11

To avoid drawing a complete blank, I am going to have a little tinkle on Nottingham Forest at home against the Scouse slayers, Reading.

After the physical strain (and emotional high) of Wednesday night up at Anfield, they are unlikely to be able to raise their game to that level again today.

Forest have been in fantastic form of late and are flying.  After a solid, but fruitless, performance at St Andrew’s on Tuesday, they should be more than refocused on the task at hand in the Championship today.

Only a little tinkle this one.

BOTW: 1pt on Forest to beat Reading @ 4/6

Apologies, but that is the best I can do at the moment I am afraid.

I currently don’t have a single selection for today’s games that I am prepared to back with any conviction.

Things are so bad even ran all the numbers for the Scottish and European leagues, which I very rarely do!

I will have another hunt this morning, but it is looking like today is a day to stand pat and partake in a bit of anti gambling!

This is one of the worst (technically best) priced weekends I have seen in a long time, and definitely the tightest this season.  Maybe the big freeze gave everyone chance to take stock and refocus…

If this really disappoints you, look at it this way… it is a lot better than me making poor selections or backing things that I believe have been too tightly priced.  Like everything in life,  honesty is always the best policy.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

I have decided to derisk my position with regards to Alex Reid on CBB.

After initially drifting during the opening days, Alex has steadily shortened over the last few days and is now 14/1 on Betfair.

For the purposes of the blog, I am going to lay off my 4pt exposure at this price.

I still think he will have a good run in the show for the reasons discussed in my initial post on the subject.

However, I am a little concerned that Vinnie Jones may move into a very short (and possibly odds on) price over the next week or so.  It seems that he is in for the long haul.  Both his attitude and some of his comments this week have made it pretty clear he has no plans of quitting the show.

As a result, I am happy to move back to a risk neutral position on Monsieur Reid, whilst retaining circa 50 pts of potential profit to possibly play around with if the situation changes dramatically as the series evolves.

Back at 25′s and lay at 14′s and you can’t go that wrong.

And all things still point to Miss Ivanova being the first for the shove, so a potential 5pt profit awaits us there come Friday.

BOTW 3 – 0 Reality TV.