THE ever-popular Gavin Murphy (@GamePlanGavin) has found an angle on the bookings markets for Friday nigh's La Liga clash in the Basque Country.
Real Sociedad v Real Betis | Friday 19.45 | Sky Sports Mix
La Liga action continues on Friday night as Real Betis travel north to play Real Sociedad in San Sebastian.
Gus Poyet's visitors are the third dirtiest team in Europe's top leagues. Only Las Palmas and French outfit Bastia are more ill-disciplined.
The Seville club also collect the most cards traditionally in the meetings between these two clubs. Over the past six encounters they have collected 27 cards compared to 11 for Real Sociedad.
The past six meetings have seen total card numbers of 5-10-2-6-6-9. When played in the Basque Country, the last three game’ total card numbers read as 5-6-6.
New official Daniel Jesus Trujillo Suarez is in charge on this occasion. He averaged 5.82 cards per-game in 2015/16.
So far this term, the 33-year-old from Tenerife has given two yellows and a red in the match between Granada and Eibar. He followed that up by issuing five cautions in the 0-0 bore draw between Osasuna and Celta Vigo.
The dilemma is which market to back. Over 3 Betis Cards is big at 11/5 with William Hill, as is Over 3 Second-Half Cards with the same firm at 13/8.
Betis to collect the most cards at around 3/4 would be a major runner based on recent head-to-head meetings too.
This referee has slightly weird patterns though, such as booking the home team (3.10 per-game) more than the away team (2.70 per-game).
Over 45 Bookings Points would have won in 18/23 matches with this referee last season – that's a success rate of 78%. As mentioned, it would also have won in 5/6 recent encounters, which is an 83% success rate.
It has an even better 100% success rate when these two clubs meet in the Basque region. Therefore, I'm going to keep it simple by recommending Over 4.5 Cards at 1.775 on Bet365's Asian line.
Best Bets
Real Sociedad v Real Betis – Over 4.5 Asian Cards (1.775 Bet365)
