STOKE V CHELSEA BETTING MAKE ANDRE VILLAS-BOAS GOOD VALUE TO START WITH A WIN

August 10, 2011 | Filed under: News | Posted by: Richard Byles - 2,190 views

Chelsea take on Stoke at the Britannia Stadium on Sunday to kick off their Premiership season and it also heralds the beginning of the Andre Villas-Boas era at Chelsea so their will be plenty of anticipation in the lead up to the game.

Stoke is a tough place to go at any time in the season, never mind the first game, but that hasn’t stopped the bookies making Chelsea the hot favourites to win the match. Chelsea can be backed at 4/6 at the time of writing and that looks a fairly generous price. Chelsea have certainly been shorter prices to win at Stoke in the past. Tony Pulis has made his side difficult to beat at home and he will be hoping to get at least a point on Sunday, Stoke are 5/1 to win the match and 14/5 to get a draw.

Stoke have never been a side to concede too many goals at home and Andre Villas-Boas could be quite cautious on his Chelsea debut so don’t expect to see too many goals in this match, under 2.5 goals certainly makes more appeal than overs in the match and that can be backed at 4/5 in places which looks decent value. If the game is to be low scoring then the two most likely correct scores would have to be 1-0 or 2-0 to Chelsea and those outcomes are available at 6/1 and 13/2 respectively, at those prices it could be worth covering both for a decent profit if either come in.

It will be interesting to see who gets the nod up front on Sunday, Didier Drogba looks most likely to lead the line given that there are still some question marks over Fernando Torres’ form. The bookies slightly favour Torres though to score the first goal of the game, he is 9/2 with Drogba looking a better bet at the current odds of 5/1. Most bookies have added exciting new signing Romelu Lukaku to the betting to score first, he is a top price of 11/2, but even if his move is fully rubber stamped by then it looks highly unlikely that he will start.

OLBG.com have a Premiership Odds page for all teams but the Stoke v Chelsea odds can be found by clicking the highlighted link.