My day has just got off to a stinking start.

I absolutely love the month of April.  Both of my main sporting pastimes, baseball and football, in full flow simultaneously.  The new baseball season is just cranking up to speed and provides some chilled out viewing, whilst the football season is reaching its crescendo, bringing with it the many high and lows and moments of despair.

My plan for this morning was to get up early, enjoy a good breakfast (scrambled eggs on toast with a few rashers of bacon) and watch my baseball team, the San Francisco Giant’s first game of the new season against their arch rival LA Dodgers whilst doing my football research to figure out which high yield bank account I want to place my cash in for the next 8 hours.

All psyched up, I hopped out of bed and fired up the game.  And just 30 minutes later, the Giants were 7 – 0 down and my morning was basically ruined!

For those that don’t follow or even know anything about baseball, although not quite “the Brian Law’s school of defending”, 7 – 0 in the second inning isn’t far off.  It is the equivalent of being 3 – 0 down after twenty minutes in a football match.

And we didn’t have Dietmar Hamann on the bench either.

So with my bacon still “medium rare”  in the oven, my morning has gone about as well as a night out with Joey Barton and I already had the game on fast forward.

This is where the 162 game baseball season helps you out as a fan.  Such crushing football defeats can leave you “waiting for next year” in terms of cup competitions and even individual league game defeats can be so pivotal that you know your team may not recover.  At best you have a full week of abuse at work and sleepless nights to boot.

Well in baseball, you forget about it and come back the next day with a chance to right the wrongs.  And tonight my team’s starting pitcher is the baseball equivalent of Lionel Messi (honestly, he really is THAT good), so I will be back again on Sunday morning to do it all over again.  Game on.

Anyway, enough idle chat… back to the football and more importantly for you guys, back to the betting.

Funny old coupon this week, and it hasn’t come out quite as I expected it to.

Three of my top ten fixtures are Premier League games (very rare) and there seems to be a real lack of value in the both the lower and lower-lower leagues this week.

I have made three selections in the end, two Premier League and one from the BSP.

First up I am going to take the 8/13 available on Sunderland to beat Burnley today.  I think there is a little bias in this price for Burnley’s shock win last week and the “mid-table mediocrity” factor.  However, I don’t think Sunderland have quite done enough yet to excuse a lack of effort over the coming weeks, and I feel many of the players will be aware they are playing for their Premier League futures.

Not with Sunderland of course, their current 13th place finishing position is all but sewn up, but I feel there could be a bit of a clearout up at TSOL this summer.

Steve Bruce will have made it very clear to his men that with a fixture against Man United to come in two weeks time, sandwiched between awkward away games at Hull and Wolves, three points today is essential to ensure they finish in a respectable position.

Anything less than three points today and they will likely be looking at a 42-43 point haul, which given their start to the season would be a pretty poor outcome.

I am not going to rant on about Burnley too much, as I have three games to get through.  But some quick-fire cold, hard facts about Burnley FC 2009 – 2010:

- They have amassed only 12 points in their 23 games since October.  That would give them a prorated total of 19 points over 38 games.  That is almost Mick McCarthy/Paul Jewell bad.

- The Clarets have lost 15 of their 17 away games so far this season.  Of these, 12 were lost by 2 or more goals.  In comparison, Portsmouth have lost only 8 away games by 2 or more goals this campaign.

- They concede a staggering 2.8 goals a game away from Turf Moor, good for 20th in the League.  That’s dead last.  Exactly where they would have finished, but for Pompey’s financial predicament.

Let’s move on.

My second selection, Birmingham City, will form the front half of a low stakes/healthy return double.

Alex McLeish’s men have had a staggering season.  I wrote a post back in January, maligning their lack of fire power and the likelihood of a regression in their results.

Since that day they have put together a line of 3/4/7/-10.  Not relegation standards by any means, in fact very respectable for a team most people were tipping to go down at the start of the season.  But not great all the same.

They face Hull at St Andrews today and I think the 4/5 left hanging by a handful of bookies is worth taking.

Iain Dowie has done very little in his managerial career to impress me.  He comes across as an affable and slightly eccentric character.  In fact, I quite like the bloke.  Quite why he chose to take on the Hull job I do not know, as it is most definitely a poisoned chalice.  He would have been better off just continuing to clown around with Jeff and the gang on GSS.

Have a look at this quite unbelievable list of results too:

Birmingham 0 – 0 Chelsea

Birmingham 1 – 1 Man United

Birmingham 1 – 1 Arsenal

Birmingham 0 – 0 Man City

Birmingham 1 – 1 Tottenham

Birmingham 1 – 1 Liverpool

The Blues are the ONLY side in the Premier League who are undefeated at home against the top six this season. That is an amazing run of results, and I would be interested to know if any non top four team has ever achieved that in the PL era. Part of me thinks they may not have.  Tip of the cap to Mr McLeish on that one.

Before all the City fans start bleating, I have excluded you from this as you have only played three of your five home games against the other top teams.  Come back when you have got 4 points from United and Spurs and I’ll give you some love.  But I wouldn’t hold your breath if I was you…

Another awesome statistic that shows Birmingham have not racked up these points by being a one trick, “park the bus” outfit.

They have played 23 games so far this season against non top four opposition.  They have scored in 20 of them.  That is 87% of them.  Mighty impressive for a team lacking in fire power.

All these little musing point to one thing.  Actually, maybe two things.

1) Alex McLeish is a bloody good manager.  He knows that is is “horses for courses” and he very rarely selects the wrong nags.  Make use of what you have and work hard.  It really isn’t that difficult – just ask David Moyes.

2) Ginger, Scottish managers are the future.

Middlesborough to get promoted next season anyone?!

Finishing off my selections for the weekend are Cambridge United down in the BSP.  I am not giving you “War and Peace” for this one, as I seem to have been going on for about four hours here.  Goal difference regression basically.

Cambridge are a strong home side, and only some off days/bad luck against the top sides has prevented them from being much higher up the table.  Eight draws from twelve games against the top six, including five away from home to me indicates a much stronger team than their league position indicates.

And they have dominated the lesser teams at home all season, for a line of 10/1/2/+24.

They easily have enough to warrant backing at 4/5.

You could pick up 4/1 on the home treble for these three, which I think looks a little bit Dawn French,  but instead I am going to be risk averse and stick with two separate wagers.

Before I head off to sit in a darkened room in preparation for the Manchester derby – Congratulations to Karl on his selection of Inter to beat Juventus in a close run affair yesterday – that one would have been a healthy money spinner.

Given my recent form, maybe I should hand over the reins…

BOTW: 3pts on Sunderland to beat Burnley @ 8/13

1.5 pts on Birmingham to beat Hull and Cambridge to beat H&Y @ 9/4