Valencia are the most carded team in Spain so Paul Higham has picked out a pair of their usual suspects for a Bet Builder bookings double against Celta Vigo for Sunday’s props column.
We had a nice winner on Saturday in Spain on bookings so as the saying goes, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, so let’s head back to La Liga for the betting opportunity that is the dirtiest team in the league playing away from home in a big Sunday night game.
Valencia have been picking up bookings like they’re going out of fashion this season, landing 53 yellows and two reds in their 15 games so far for an average of over three-and-a-half bookings per game.
They head off to Celta Vigo on Sunday on the back of three straight draws that has seen them slip down the table, with Celta able to go level on points with them if they can get a home win, which they’re favourites to do.
Valencia’s commitment to getting stuck in is admirable and they’re all at it – they’ve got five players who have collected five or more bookings, with Paraguay defender Omar Alderete leading the way with nine yellow cards to his name from just 14 games.
He is one of five Valencia players who have therefore been handed suspensions, with two of them – French defenders Mouctar Diakhaby and Dimitri Foulquier – missing this game after both picked up their fifth bookings last week against Rayo Vallecano. The French pair and Alderete (naturally) all saw yellow as Valencia picked up six yellows.
And they could well do so again, with Celta having the third-highest average of cards given out per game to opposing players in the league this is a game that’s a prime candidate for another array of yellow being flashed about by referee Ricardo Bengoetxea.
It’s just over even money at 2.26/5 that Valencia pick up over 3.5 cards, and 4.03/1 for them to pick up over 4.5 bookings and those prices are tempting given their love of getting names in the book.
With Celta fielding the likes of Iago Aspas, Nolito and Denis Suarez there’s plenty of energy and trickery that can force fouls and bookings, so instead of the overall cards or even Valencia’s cards, we’re picking out players who are the likely candidates to see yellow.
Firstly, it has to be Omar Alderete who is as close to a walking booking as you’d ever see with four of his nine coming in his last five games – before which he even managed to get himself sent off for Paraguay against Chile.
The fact he’s actually odds-against to get booked is a gift.
There are plenty of options to add to Alderete, but preference goes to Hugo Guillamon, the Spanish defensive midfielder who could well be operating at the back in this game duo to injuries and the aforementioned suspensions.
Guillamon has five yellows and a red to his name in La Liga this season, and you can throw in one more in the Copa Del Rey and three more from just three games for the Spain Under-21s. It’s seven bookings in his last 10 overall.
The switch to defence won’t help his case in this one either, and with 14 fouls in his last four games he was always going to be a candidate to be booked against Celta’s attack even if operating in midfield.
The Bet Builder double looks like a great bet.
Source: Betfair Spanish La Liga
