A superb 6/4 winner on Thursday night in the Europa League, Gavin Murphy (@GamePlanGavin) is heading to MLS for his next card bet.
Seattle Sounders v LA Galaxy | Saturday 20:00 | Sky Sports 3
Major League Soccer continues on Saturday night as Steven Gerrard and his LA Galaxy team travel north to play Seattle Sounders. The teams met three times last season with Galaxy winning two.
Seattle have just one win in their last seven MLS games but are expecting Clint Dempsey back for this one. Robbie Keane returned for LA against Vancouver in midweek and notched his fifth goal of the campaign.
Historically this is a fixture with few cards in it. The last five encounters read as 3-0-2-6-2, an average of 2.6 per game. When played in Seattle the average drops to just 1.33.
Baldomero Toledo gets the whistle for this one. He averages 3.6 cards per game so far this term. In career games officiating the hosts he typically gives them 1.6 cards per game and 1.69 to LA. Again that suggests around 3.3 cards might be expected.
There are some interesting patterns with Toledo. He has booked the away team first in 6/8 matches. What interests me though is the time he issues his first card. This season they read as 25-60-64-12-57-82-68-32. That is an average of 50 minutes.
Seattle's last three matches had an average first card time of 30 minutes. Galaxy's was even higher at 42 minutes. In their previous five head to head meetings the average time of first card was 46.8 minutes.
Seattle are the second lowest team in MLS for receiving cards and fouls. Galaxy are fourth lowest. In a match that is expected to have a low number of cards and good historical stats, I'm recommending ‘no card before 33.00' with Bet365 at 5/6.
Best Bets
Seattle Sounders v LA Galaxy – No Card Before 33:00 (5/6 Bet365)
