MIDWEEK MLS tips? We got em! Will Dyer (@w2Dyer) takes us through his best bets.
Columbus Crew vs New York City FC | Thursday 00:30 | Sky Sports 3
Another brace for Kei Kamara last weekend, this time away to Colorado Rapids which, despite their poor standing, is not an easy place to excel and win. That puts the Sierra Leonean striker on 17 for the season; in just 24 games, that’s an exceptional strike rate.
New York City are leaking just shy of two goals per game away from home and have not kept a clean sheet in any of their previous eight MLS matches. They’ve shipped three or more in half of those games too.
NYC are without George John, Connor Brandt and Chris Wingert – three of their defenders and that lack of consistency at the back is causing real problems. So, it’s fairly obvious I fancy Crew in this one and I think the best bet on offer is the anytime goalscorer price on Kamara to notch. He’s a bully-boy forward who will get chances against a terrible New York backline.
Sporting Kansas City v San Jose Earthquakes | Thursday 01:30
A bad showing on my part last weekend except for one side, Sporting KC. Kansas City not only maintained their unbeaten record against Vancouver but a last minute Paulo Nagamura winner saw them claim all three points and reduce the gap to the Whitecaps to just two points.
That’s only half the story though. The visitors were leading 3-1 in the 80th minute and looked set to continue their impressive away record until Sporting scored three goals to win the game in the space of 13 minutes. That never say die spirit will take them a long way this season; as a result I’m getting a little excited about my 25/1 on them winning the MLS Cup.
So 12 games in and SKC are still yet to lose in front of the ‘Blue Hell’, I think they might just keep that going until the end of the regular season. They’ve actually only lost four games all season, two less than anyone else in the league. They certainly justify best odds of 4/6 and shortening.
Sporting have won all of their six meetings with San Jose at Sporting Park and with the Earthquakes losing their last four away games on the spin I think we can be pretty sure that Kansas are going to win this. I’m not one for tipping anything much below Evens so I’ll go for a juicy price here on SKC winning with the Earthquakes also finding the net.
Clean sheets have dried up for Sporting who’ve now not had one at home in six games in all competitions whilst San Jose have scored in nine of their last 10 away games.
The Earthquakes put together some nice moves when I watched them play Man United in a pre-season friendly and I doubt they’ll be completely outplayed here. Chris Wondolowski is having another good season; Wondo has nine goals to his name, that’s more than any Kansas City player.
I wrote about my love for 2-1 and 3-1 correct scores in a WLB Analysis earlier this year but, as MLS has been chucking up an abundance of score-lines in the region of 4-3 and 5-2, and BetVictor seem to have jacked in their Correct Score Groups market, I’ll opt for Sporting in the Match Result and Both Teams to score market.
Best Bets
Columbus Crew v New York City FC – Kei Kamara to score anytime (23/20 Coral)
Sporting Kansas City v San Jose Earthquakes – Sporting Kansas City to win and Both Teams To Score (31/10 888 Sport)
