Hello and welcome,

Euro midweek qualifiers

my picks for the international midweek qualifiers involve the following teams, plus any that take my fancy after browsing punters lounge and analysing stats on football365.

Anyone with an interest in staking on the Euro qualifiers should take a look at

http://www.punterslounge.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35945

Croatia v England

Croatia   3.1

England  2.72

Draw     3.15

England do not justify starting this match as favourites. A draw would be a good result for England.  In running, my starting position will be to lay them.

Wales v Cyprus

Wales  1.7

Cyprus 6.4

Draw   3.85

Again Wales do not justify odds-on favourite status for this tie. They were heavily beaten at home to Slovakia while Cyprus thrashed the Republic of Ireland. There is a good chance Cyprus will get something out of this game. In my view, and other commentators on punters-lounge, the prices are quite a bit wrong for this game.  Starting strategy in running will be to lay Wales. I will also be having a punt in the over 2.5 market. Both games involving Wales and Cyprus had a hatful of goals the other day, and this could be another end-to-end game with plenty of goal scoring opportunities.

Republic of Ireland v Czech Republic

Rep. of Ireland  4.2

Czech Republic 2.2

Draw                3.35

The Republic must surely play better than they did against Cyprus on Saturday, but I would still strongly fancy the fancied Czech Republic team here to win at above evens. I'll probably go for the Asian Handicap for this tie.

J.C market steamer

As predicted in earlier posts, Joe Calzaghe is still steaming up the leaderboard for SPOTY. Now in from 50.0 four days ago to 26.0, and still moving. I would expect this to continue until at least the commencement of his title defence on Saturday, and to continue for a few hours more if he wins the fight (A few alcohol fuelled punters may lump on post fight if he's done the business). After peaking at around fight time, he will start to drift. Hopefully will be able to take him both coming down, and then going up again, for a tidy profit (with the constraints of my small stakes). There's not really much in that market that will interest the trader who deals in hundreds and thousands of pounds, since the amounts staked are quite modest (though over half a million has been matched over the past few months), but to the small time trader with modest aims such as mine, SPOTY has been a real highlight.

Happy trading and punting!

FT