What happened in the FA Cup 3rd Round?

FA Cup 3^rd Round weekend is special for every football fan, and this past weekend didn’t disappoint as the magic of the Cup was proved to be alive and kicking. While the big boys eased through – Man City winning 4-1 at Swindon on Friday while Chelsea beat Chesterfield 5-1 on Saturday and Liverpool saw of Shrewsbury 4-1 yesterday – there was still plenty of upsets. League One Cambridge United won a memorable encounter against Newcastle in front of more than 51,000 fans at St James’ Park, Joe Ironside grabbing the only goal of the game and keeper Dimitar Mitov repelling all that was sent hi way. And not to be outdone in letting their fans down, in-form Arsenal surrendered meekly at Championship side Nottingham Forest, also going down 1-0, Lewis Grabban coming on to score the only goal of the game. National League Kidderminster stunned Reading on Saturday, and will now face Premier League West Ham in the 4^th Round, while Boreham Wood, the other non-League side still in, travel to Championship leaders Bournemouth after beating AFC Wimbledon.

Performance Superiority Cambridge/Newcastle (settled at 7)

Performance points are awarded for various aspects of a game; 25 for winning it, 15 for a goal, 10 for a draw, 10 for a clean sheet ad 3 for a corner, with -5 for a yellow card and -15 for a red. The Performance Superiority was set as Newc/Camb 71-76, so selling at 71 made those expecting Newcastle’s woes to continue 78 times their bet.

What happened in Serie A over the weekend?

We saw on Thursday how Roma’s ill discipline was costing them on the pitch but rewarding punters off it, with buyers of their Multi-Bookings against AC Milan winning over 2000 times their bets thanks largely to red cards for Rick Karsdorp and Gianluca Mancina. They managed to correct that yesterday against Juventus, but lost their heads in another way as they contrived to lose 4-3 in a game they were 3-1 up in with 20 minutes to go. They were then gifted a late penalty to at least secure a point with a 4-4 draw, but missed that too! Jose Mourinho’s side had gained their advantage through goals from Tammy Abraham, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Lorenzo Pellegrini, with Paulo Dybala getting Juve’s solitary reply. In the 70^th minute the revival started though, with Manuel Locatelli heading in an Alvaro Morata cross, before substitute Dejan Kulusevski levelled two minutes later. Defender Mattia De Sciglio put Juve ahead on 77 minutes to complete the turnaround, and while Matthijs de Ligt was sent off for handling Abraham’s shot to give Roma a lifeline from the penalty spot, Pellegrini saw his penalty saved by Wojciech Szczesny.

Shirts x Bookings (settled at 14,960)

In an all-action game like this one, the overs hit on plenty of markets, but the biggest winner we saw was a buy in the Shirts x Bookings market. The spread was set at 3100-3400, so buyers won a massive 11,560 times their stake.

Did England lose again in the Ashes or have they avoided a whitewash?

England finally showed a bit of backbone and determination as they held on doggedly to claim a draw in the 4^th Ashes Test, and end any fears this series would end in yet another 5-0 whitewash. Last man James Anderson had to survive a tense last over, but solid contributions from Zak Crawley (77), Ben Stokes (60) and Jonny Bairstow (41) meant England grabbed a modicum of pride as they head into the 5^th and final Test in Hobart ‘only’ 3-0 down.

Khawaja 1^st Innings runs (settled at 137)

Usman Khawaja was the star of the show for the Aussies, taking the Player of the Match award after hitting centuries in both innings. The middle order batsman is a veteran of man an Ashes series, and has never made much of an impression. After the 1^st Test, when Travis Head was picked head of him and scored a magnificent 150, he may have thought his time had gone, but when the opportunity arose with Head isolating, Khawaja grabbed it with both hands, following up his 1^st innings 137 with 101no in the 2^nd.  With a spread of 35-40 in the 1^st innings, buyers made 97 times their stake as Khawaja grabbed his opportunity with both hands. Interestingly, having seen he was in form, buyers were still well rewarded in the 2^nd innings. Khawaja’s spread was set at 27-31 because of the state of the game, Australia going for quick runs, and a declaration coming at some point that would prevent him going on to make a massive score, yet buyers still made 80 times their bet as he became just the 6^th Aussie to score a century in each innings of an Ashes Test.