Soccer News

Home

Teams

Leagues

Quizzes

Newsletter

Pau Torres of Aston Villa Photo by Mark Leech/Offside/Offside via Getty Images

Premier League best bets: A relegation showdown at the start of the festive season

By Alyssa Clang | Last updated 11/29/23

Welcome to Matchday 14 of the Premier League—the time when things start really heating up.

Most European leagues take a short break during the holiday season to a) encourage their players to rest and b) avoid playing in unbearably cold conditions. These winter breaks often lead to unique national traditions, like Germany’s annual crowning of its herbstmeister. ("Herbstmeister" roughly translates to "autumn champion," and it’s a distinction given to the team at the top of the Bundesliga at the halfway point of the season. There are beers, shields and crowns involved. It’s a lot of fun.)

The Premier League, though, is a little different — when the rest of Europe slows down, it speeds up dramatically. The holiday season is the busiest stretch of the Premier League calendar by far. We had three matchdays per month through September, October and November; December will hand us a whopping seven.

There are fans and pundits out there who believe that the Premier League title is won or lost during this intense festive stretch, and it’s easy to see why. With so many games, so little time and playing conditions that often include snow and freezing rain, only the strongest teams manage to escape the winter period unscathed.

Matchday 14, then, is also the first matchday of this crucial winter season. Here’s what we’re keeping an eye on as it all kicks off:

Arsenal vs. Wolves — If you’re not watching Wolves in this Premier League season, you’re missing out. The Midlands squad has delivered some of the most entertaining matches of the season, from its hand-over-mouth victories against Man City and Spurs to its heartbreaking loss to Man United. Wolves are a neutral’s dream, and they always bring the attacking drama.

Wolves must dig deep to take down league leader Arsenal, who waltz into this match fresh off a breezy 6-0 Champions League victory over Lens. But Wolves have beaten the Premier League’s best before, and they’ll fancy their chances to do it again. Lovers of drama (and haters of Arsenal) might want to bet on Wolves snatching this one at +800, but we’re monitoring another bet: corners. These two teams should be good for tons of them. We’re eyeing 12 or more corners at +275.

Burnley vs. Sheffield United — This is it: The relegation six-pointer to end all relegation six-pointers. Both Burnley and Sheffield have struggled to get much of anything going in the Premier League this season, and distance has begun to form between them and their competitors. (Everton’s down there too, but it’s only there because of its controversial points deduction for financial misdeeds.)

This should be a close game, but the odds don’t seem to reflect it. Burnley is at -125 to win this one while Sheffield is at +350. Sure, it’s a home game for Burnley, but given that Burnley is lower in the table than Sheffield, home-field advantage doesn’t feel like a big enough lift to account for that difference.

And Sheffield? It’s not exactly on a winning streak, but it’s strung together some decent performances in recent weeks. It beat Wolves and drew with Brighton, two teams it has no business competing with at this juncture. We think betting on Sheffield to win is an arbitrage opportunity at +350.

Bournemouth vs. Aston Villa — Villa is on a hot streak these days — it’s fourth in the league and high off a well-deserved victory over Spurs. We’ve come a long, long way from the 16th-placed Aston Villa of the Alex McLeish era, a team whose strongest goalscoring threat was Emile Heskey (if you know, you know.) It's incredible to think of how this Villa team has changed since then; it's gone from punchlines to headlines in just 10 years flat.

Villa should take this Bournemouth game handily; it’s exactly the kind of game Unai Emery and his men like. But who will score for Villa when everyone seems equally likely to knock one in? We’ve got our eyes on Moussa Diaby, who is due for another goal after a few quiet games. At +200 to score anytime, he’s a decent shout.

But for fans of long-shot epic payouts, there’s just one Villa player to watch: Pau Torres. Bournemouth is notoriously bad at defending corners; Torres is 6-foot-3 with an impressive vertical leap. He’s at +2500 to net a header in this game.

Start your betting day right! Sign up for Bark Bets, the best sports betting newsletter on the web!

More must-reads: