Football Bet of the Day: Palmeiras not pulling up any trees

Avert Your Eyes: Even the Palmeiras players struggle to watch home games

From Southport to Sao Paolo, Tobias Gourlay's is an unusual commute

Palmeiras v Criciuma
Wednesday, 23:30

Southport 1 Kidderminster 0 is the good news from Merseyside.

We'd like to tell you more about the game, but obviously we were never going to sit through that.

And we're giving ourselves another night off in South America this evening.

A quick glance at Palmeiras's game with Criciuma and you'd think it had Under 2.5 Goals stamped all over it.

Well, you'd be right. However hard we crunch the numbers, it's the only plausible outcome. In this season's Campeonato 7/9 Palmeiras home games have finished with two goals or fewer and so have 8/9 Criciuma away matches.

Going deeper, it's halfway through the season and 16th-placed Palmeiras have underwhelmed at the Allianz Parque. They've scored just seven times in those nine games themselves, only once notching more than once. Given that league position, the defence has been OK, with three clean sheets and leaking at an overall rate of just a goal a game. 

17th-placed Criciuma are this season's least prolific outfit. They've struck nine times in 19 overall and just once - once! - in nine away games. One of their most recent outings was to 19th-placed Bahia. It finished 0-0.

Wagner Lopes has tightened them up at the back an' all, since they were crushed 6-0 by Botafogo early in the season. In seven subsequent road games they're yet to concede more than twice.

Don't wait up.

Recommended Bet
Back Under 2.5 Goals @ 1.664/6 in Palmeiras v Criciuma

2014 P/L (1pt per bet)

Staked: 23pts
Returned: 25.72pts

+2.72pts