BOOKINGS king Gavin Murphy (@GamePlanGavin) has found a pre-Christmas bet for us to get involved with.
Eintracht Frankfurt v Mainz | Tuesday 19:00
I was scouring the card lines late on Monday night and noticed a match in Germany with under or over 6.5 cards. So what you may say? Well the normal range in the Bundesliga is 3.5-4.5 so this made me raise my proverbial eyebrow!
Derby
It transpires that Eintracht Frankfurt v Mainz is the Rhein-Main derby and it has a rich recent record of cards. The past five meetings between these two clubs have seen cards issued of 8-9-8-7-6 at an average of 7.6 per game. That is exceptionally high for Germany.
Encouragingly, hosts Frankfurt are THE dirtiest team in Germany's top flight so far this season with 44 yellow cards and three red cards. They average 3.33 per game. Visitors Mainz are third worst in the Bundesliga with 30 yellow cards and four red cards. They average 2.53 per game.
Gunter Perl gets the whistle for this local battle. It is hard to judge him because, as I've mentioned, Germany is typically a league for low cards. For the record, the 46 year old from Munich averages 4.4 cards per game. He gave five when Mainz hosted Bayer Leverkusen and his season high watermark was seven when Frankfurt won 3-0 in Hamburg.
Winter Break
As well as local bragging rights being up for grabs both teams are on the fringes of Europa League qualification in 6th and 8th position respectively.
As they head into their winter break a ferocious battle is expected here. Most bookies are around the 10/11 mark. Purely on the recent head to head record the 23/20 on over 65pts with William Hill looks stand out value and gets the call.
Best Bets
Eintracht Frankfurt v Mainz – Over 65 Bookings Points (23/20 William Hill)
