Premier League Betting Tips: Why Arsenal Won’t Win the Title

Premier League football betting predictions for the new season and a damming report on why Arsenal will not be winning the 2014/15 Premier League title.

It’s happening again.  For so much of the summer, supporters are perfectly rational and realistic about their team’s aims, whether they think they can escape the clutches of relegation by one point, or they can achieve a top ten place, or in my case, accept that a top four place is extremely unlikely.

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But then we come to the month of August, with just two or three weekends left before the return of the Premier League, and it’s full blown delusion again. Now we believe that an unheralded team like Spurs or Everton team can break into the Champion’s League places, or Southampton fans can envision their team of youth players and Eredivise products running rings around Liverpool on the first day of the season.

I am here, however to bring some realism to the situation, and my focus for this football betting tip is on Arsenal and whether they can win the Premier League for the first time since 2004.

Arsenal are currently best odds 13/2 (Ladbrokes) to win the 2014/15 Premier League title – back them here.

There’s no doubt that there are grounds for optimism at the Emirates.  It started with Arsene Wenger signing a 3 year contract extension in May, giving existing players and transfer targets certainty that they would be working with the man they expected to when they joined up.  The club has also done a lot of their transfer business early, with Alexis Sanchez the most eye-catching capture.

However, is it enough to overthrow the reigning champions Manchester City, or Chelsea?  Because it is six-pointer games like these where they were a dismal failure last season.  Losing 5-3 at the Etihad Stadium and 6-0 at Stamford Bridge were eye-popping results, while against a Manchester United team that were there to be ground into the dirt, they lost 1-0 at Old Trafford and drew 0-0 at the Emirates.

Where are the leaders, the players who will drag the team forwards when they are faced with a difficult situation?  Sanchez will take time to adapt as the new guy in the changing room, and he’s hardly going to get in people’s faces even when he’s comfortable anyway. 

The back four has made an upturn in recent years, even with the disasters of last season accounted for, but there is a change now at full-back with Bacary Sagna leaving; Mathieu Debuchy will step in and he has big shoes to fill.  On the plus side for the defensive side of the team, signing goalkeeper David Ospina from Nice will give the team more consistency between the sticks.

The biggest questions are further forward; as things stand there is a need for a defensive midfielder like Sami Khedira or William Carvalho to try and match the physicality of their rival’s engine rooms, while the gaping hole in the frontline has been apparent since this time last year.  Olivier Giroud is the only option, and whether he’s up to the job or not as has been discussed so many times, he can’t start every game.

Now to Mesut Ozil, who deserves a special mention due to his status and what he has promised, as well as that record breaking transfer fee.  He simply has to step up a level this season, he’s had the bedding-in period and now he has to be at the forefront of Arsenal’s attack.  Unfortunately, it isn’t going to happen; there is no drive from him to separate himself from the pack and become the main man.  He won’t influence the biggest games but will come alive to gild the lily of a comfortable win against the minnows of the league. 

As a symbol of what Arsenal are all about, Ozil’s tough to beat.  And that’s why we’ll see what we’ve seen from this team this season; promising runs of form here and there until it ultimately falls away.  They will not be top of the pile next May.

For a football betting tip on Arsenal this season, there seems little chance of them winning the title, but if you are hopeful they can challenge at the top, have a bet on them in the without Chelsea and Manchester City market at odds of 2/1 with Ladbrokes.

Premier League Betting Tip

Arsenal to win the league without Man City and Chelsea – bet here at 2/1 with Ladbrokes: new accounts get a free £50 bet.

Bet on our betting tips for next season at Ladbrokes.

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