Bookies to say sorry with dairy treat

Paddy Power controversially paid out on Stoke being relegated on the opening day of the season. After losing 3-1 to Bolton, the Irish bookmakers shelled out £30,000 and reasoned: “If you’re getting tonked by Bolton on the opening day you’re going to struggle.”

After being proven spectacularly wrong with their assumption, the bookmakers have decided to generate even more publicity for themselves formally apologise to Potters fans via the medium of frozen deserts.

Before the final game of the season with Wigan Paddy Power will be serving 8,000 scoops of “humble pie” flavoured ice cream at the Britannia Stadium, which they are confident will meet the demands of the 24,000 home fans. Sounds to us like they need to check their maths once again…

Our pals at chickendinner hand Liverpool some straws to clutch

Paddy Power think the title race is over and offer just 1/14 on Manchester United winning for the third straight season. To stop them, Liverpool must win all their remaining games and hope that the Red Devils drop six points. It’s all very unlikely but rather than accepting a premature end to an exciting campaign, we decided to look at where the holders are most likely to slip up:

Tottenham (h)
Spurs are unbeaten in six league meetings with the Big Four sides and have lost just one away game against a top-half side. Harry Redknapp’s side have lost one of their last nine and he has won there with West Ham and Portsmouth. Spurs haven’t won an away league match against a Big Four side since August 1993 - when they beat Liverpool 2-1 at Anfield.
Verdict: United could drop two points here but three is unlikely.

Middlesbrough (a)
Boro have a deceptively good home record for a team in the bottom three and

Lucky fan cashes in on successive eight goal thrillers

Tuesday night’s eight goal thriller at wasn’t only a disaster for Liverpool - the bookies also suffered. Paddy Power had to pay out £500,000 to 537 punters who correctly backed the 4-4 draw at odds of 500-1.

According to The Sun, a man from Leicester (who remains anonymous as gamblling is forbidden in his Muslim religion) caused the Irish bookmaker the most damage, after backing both of Liverpool’s recent 4-4 draws:

The 31-year-old landed £12,500 last week when he predicted the outcome of the club’s Champions League tie against Chelsea.Then he put some of the winnings on backing the same score in Tuesday night’s Premiership clash against Arsenal.

He was rewarded after Gunners’ goal hero Andrey Arshavin scored four and Liverpool’s Yossi Benayoun got a last-gasp equaliser.

The father of two bet £25 at odds of 500-1 on the first match and £57.64 at 500-1 on the second.

Through gritted teeth, Paddy Power said they “couldn’t be more delighted” that the punter scooped such a huge reward, in light of the fact that he had recently lost his job.

… revealed in this brief interlude to help you make money on the nags

Don’t resort to picking names out of hats or playing a game of pin the tail on the form guide: our friends at chickendinner have come up with a foolproof plan to identify this year’s Grand National winner. They eliminated all the likely losers who don’t fit the profile of a champion until we were left with just one horse standing. Read on to find out who it was:

Step One
14 of the last 17 winners started in the top eight of the betting. Therefore it must be one of these guys (three are joint-eighth):
My Will, Butler’s Cabin, Rambling Minister, State of Play, Hear The Echo, Parsons Legacy, Darkness, Comply or Die, Black Apalachi or Irish Invader

Step Two
10 of the last 13 winners have been aged either 9 or 10. That means we say goodbye to Rambling Minister (11), Hear The Echo (8), Parsons Legacy (11) and Irish Invader (8). Still fighting are:

Paddy Power put their faith in the Reds

This morning, we suggested that the Premier League 2008/09 trophy presentation should be brought forward, and it seems the folks at Paddy Power agree. They are paying out on Manchester Utd winning the treble, signalling the first time a bookie has paid out early on a team winning more than one trophy in a season. Some guy said:

“We know and punters know the race for trophies is all but over for another year so why wait for the formalities? If none of the opposition are able to even score a goal against United what chance have they got of actually beating them to silverware? We just hope someone can do us a favour and stop them in Europe.

“However, paying out on all three is a gamble. Football has a way of biting teams on the backside when they least expect it so we could yet end up with egg on our faces and not for the first time.”

Paddy Power aren’t stupid, and sometimes pay out on markets that aren’t attracting enough interest in order to drum up publicity. For example, they paid out £30,000 on Stoke to be relegated after the first weekend of the Premiership, an exposure that they probably covered with the resulting publicity.

Entirely coincidental Spoiler reader offer: Fancy a punt on the Premier League? Place a £10 bet with Paddy Power and receive another £10 bet for free.

The Welshman has started less league games than John O’Shea

Sir Alex Ferguson, Alan Hansen and Robbie Savage have all taken turns this week to talk up Ryan Giggs as the most deserving winner of the PFA Player of the Year but The Spoiler does not believe that he should win it this season.

The Welsh midfielder is arguably the greatest footballer in the Premier League’s history and probably deserves some kind of award recognising his overall contribution to English football but it wouldn’t be right for someone who has started just nine of Manchester United’s 24 league games (37.5%) to date this season to be crowned the year’s standout performer.

Is the Swede about to get involved in the relegation dogfight?

Yesterday Sven-Goran Eriksson was one of the favourites for the Chelsea job but this morning he has leapfrogged Avram Grant and Alan Curbishley to emerge as the frontrunner to succeed Tony Adams at Portsmouth.

The former England boss is currently in charge of Mexico, who face the USA in a World Cup qualifier tomorrow night, and while you would expect him to walk if Chelsea came calling, the Portsmouth link remains unconvincing.

World Cup Qualifier, 7.30pm, Setanta Sports 1, £10 Free Bet

Rather than just telling you why Wayne Rooney might score in Minsk, our friends at chickendinner have examined all ten likely outfield starters for England tonight and assessed each individual’s chances of scoring the opening goal:

Wayne Bridge - The left-back hasn’t scored in 21 months and his one international goal, against Iceland in 2004, was the sixth in that match.

Matthew Upson - He’s the only likely outfield starter without an international goal but his only goal in the last 22 months was an important one: West Ham’s winner against Manchester United last December.

Rio Ferdinand - Has only once managed to score in consecutive games in his career and even then only one was a first goal.

Wes Brown - Scored his first England goal at home to the Czech Republic