£10-£500 Ladder Challenge – Bet 5

Partick Thistle will be hoping to bounce back from their 1-0 defeat away to Inverness with a win against Hamilton today.

Although it was a defeat last week, there is context and that is important. Partick Thistle went down to 10 men in the 40th minute and despite playing 50+ minutes one man down they matched Inverness – 50/50 possession, 7/7 shots, and 0.96 xG vs 0.90 xG.

Partick Thistle are 2nd favourites for the league and have had a great start. They’re top of the league with 5 wins, 2 draws and 2 defeats from their opening 9 matches.

Opponents Hamilton are bottom of the league with only 1 win from their opening 9 matches.

Hamilton suffered their worst defeat of the season last week, losing 5-0 away to Morton, a team Partick beat 5-1 the week before.

Hamilton seem to be in a lot of mess. They’ve lost their last three matches failing to score a single goal: 0-2, 0-2, 5-0. Their only win came at home to second-bottom Arbroath back in August.

Hamilton did manage a draw against Partick back on the 6th of August but they were lucky. Partick had 19 shots to their 8, 8 corners to their 2 and 2.44 xG to their 1.05.

I think this will be a comfortable victory for Partick Thistle, never mind us just needing them to avoid defeat.

Valencia will go into their match on Saturday as heavy favourites when they take on bottom of the table Elche at the Mestalla.

They currently sit 7th in La Liga with 13 points from their opening 8 games. They’re only losses were both tight 1-0 affairs against a high flying Athletic Bilbao, and a tenacious Atletico Madrid.

Valencia have scored 14 goals so far this campaign, an average of 1.75 goals per game, and they’ve conceded just 8.

An xG of 1.83 per 90 ranks Valencia 5th in this metric in the Spanish top flight, and this already impressive number increases to 1.97 when at home.

An xGA of just 1.22 when at home also highlights as to how Valencia have turned the Mestalla into somewhat of a fortress.

Elche meanwhile, have had an awful start to the season, picking up just two points from 8 games with draws against Mallorca and a newly promoted Almeria side.

They’ve scored just 4 goals, and conceded 19 so far this season. That’s 2.38 goals conceded per game.

An xG of 0.77, and an xGA of 2.06, per 90 ranks them last for both metrics in La Liga. Their xGA rises to an appalling 2.46 per 90 when away from home.

Given that they’ve only mustered 2.12 shots on target per 90, and conceded 6.50, Elche could well be in for another long afternoon.

Valencia should have more than enough quality to put their opponents to the sword in this one.