Weekend Football League
Weekend Football League Betting by Blue Square's Jon Sykes
Judging by the coverage Sky Sports has given the Football League this season, you'd be forgiven for believing there's only one team worth watching. It might finally be a reason for Mike Ashley @ St James' Park to be cheerful but our good friends at Murdoch Towers give us a well earned breather from Newcastle's battle to restore Geordie pride with an all together more appealing fixture for the neutral this Friday night.
Let's get things straight, the 'yo-yo' club tag that has never been too far away from West Brom in the last decade shouldn't be sneered at. With clubs regularly showing less financial sense than Alistair Darling, their stability should be applauded. Despite changes in management, the objectives of the club have never been impacted. That said, you get the impression the second-placed Baggies have become too comfortable with the concept themselves and are expectant of once again reaching 'the promised land'.
This Friday night they host an emerging Nottingham Forest side that were 40/1 to win the league at the start of the season. Now in the lofty position of third, Billy Davies' boys are made of stern stuff away from home and boast an unbeaten record that rolls all the way back to March. Invariably set up to avoid defeat rather than win away from home, Roberto Di Matteo's side will find it difficult to get through a miserly defence that hasn't shipped a goal in over a month. West Brom go in as odds-on favourites but with everyone expecting this to be a matter of whether they can crack through the Reds' resolute defence they may take their eye off the talented attacking options Wee Billy has assembled. The 5/6 about there being under 2.5 goals still looks a likely prospect though!
Over the river from Forest's City Ground, the waves being made by the World's oldest Football League club have well and truly subsided. They had Sol but he wasn't a soldier and now doubts surround how much longer it will be before Sven sees sense and realises the dream of turning County into a Premier League force was a bit overboard. Dubiously optimistic Chief Executive Peter will be Trembling in his boots that yet another game falls victim to the big freeze (I think they used to call it winter?). Given their instability the 8/11 about them getting promoted looks much less likely than Rotherham who, with three games in hand on their rivals and counting, are quoted at the same price and have a proven manager in Ronnie Moore.
A touch further north it's back to the cold-hard reality of League One football for Leeds, not that it will last much longer. The dust had barely settled on their famous win at Old Trafford, before Jermaine Beckford submitted an expected transfer request. The likely loss of Beckford's goals shouldn't impact on Simon Grayson's side as heavily as might be expected though. The likes of Becchio and Snodgrass should give them enough firepower to end their tortuous three season stay in England's third tier. Talking of firepower, the 5/4 about Southampton's Ricky Lambert finishing as top goalscorer looks inviting with him already two goals ahead of his nearest rival. He may not be in action this weekend but he'll be ready to go next week. Grayson will be wondering whether he can say the same about his in-demand striker.
Check out
![[Valid RSS]](http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/chix_pix/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed"){kind=small}
