SOUTHAMPTON v BURNLEY
Sunday 12th August 2018 – Kickoff: 1330hrs
Football – England – Premier League Betting Tips
Sunday’s lunchtime fixture sees Southampton taking on Burnley at St Mary’s Stadium with betting tips in the Premier League continuing on the south coast.
After several seasons of stability and sustaining a healthy mid-table or thereabouts presence in the top flight, Southampton went mightily close to going down at the end of last season. Former coach, Mauricio Pellegrino was shown the door after a very lean spell saw The Saints go a worrying 21 matches with just one win, and he was duly sacked.
In came former player, Mark Hughes, and although there was increasing pressure on him to produce results immediately, ‘Sparky’ did just that and steered his side to safety following a four match unbeaten run which included wins over Bournemouth and Swansea City to secure their Premier League status for another season.
The Saints ended their season with a disappointing home record of 4-7-8 20/26 and Hughes will be keen to make St Mary’s a fortress again this season. Scoring goals was a bit of a problem for the south coast side also, and it’s worth noting that 12 of their 19 home matches ended in under 2.5 goals.
Burnley’s season began a few weeks ago as they’re currently involved in the early qualifying rounds of the Europa League thanks to a solid campaign last term which resulted in Burnley finishing in an excellent 7th place in the Premier League.
The Clarets safely negotiated their way past Scottish Premiership outfit, Aberdeen over two legs, and although the second leg went into extra-time, they eventually got the job done at Turn Moor where they ran out 3-1 winners and 4-2 on aggregate.
Burnley manager, Sean Dyche has made his side an extremely hard until to break down, as Turkish club Istanbul Basaksehir found out when Burnley ground out a 0-0 draw in the first leg of the third qualifying round during the week.
Again, Burnley have a great chance of now progressing through to the group stages of the Europa League as they return to Turf Moor for the second leg next Thursday evening, and I wonder if Dyche may just be tempted to rest a few of his key players to ensure the more lucrative financial return that the bigger picture represents.
Burnley also tightened up away from home last season too as they ended with a more than reasonable away record of 7-7-5 20/22 which included 11 matches that resulted in under 2.5 goals. The visitors also recorded five clean sheets on their travels.
My betting tips therefore advise backing the under 2.5 goals market here.
Pick: Under 2.5 @ 1.67 Betfair
