Top 3 bets from Friday's football, racing and rugby

When is the Arsenal versus Aston Villa Premier League game?

The Premier League weekend starts at 8pm on Friday night this week with Arsenal taking on Aston Villa at the Emirates. Just when it looked like they’d put their bad start to the season behind them, the Gunners were pretty ordinary in Monday’s home game with Crystal Palace, when they needed a late equaliser from substitute Alexandre Lacazette to grab a point. Villa won the corresponding fixture 3-0 last season, and while they are on a run of two defeats themselves, they will have no fears going into this one. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has scored in three straight home games and is boosted to score anytime with Spreadex fixed odds to 23/20 (from evens). He is 17/5 favourite to score the first goal.

Ollie Watkins Super Mega Minutes 20-24

Watkins has had a slow start to the season, not playing at all until the end of August, and only scoring one goal so far. However, his one goal was scored on Villa’s last trip to North London, at Spurs, and he scored twice in Villa’s 3-0 win at the Emirates last season. If the England striker can hit that form again, buyers of Super Mega Minutes, which aggregates a player’s goal minutes, but doubles the minutes of a 2^nd goal and trebles those of a 3^rd will be thrilled. After just one goal in his six Villa games this season though, is he in that kind of form?

Is there any Friday night horse racing?

There’s an evening meeting at Newcastle featuring seven races. The first race is off at 5.30 and the final race on the card is 8.30.

Richard Kingscote Jockey Performance 41-44

With 5 rides tonight, Richard Kingscote has the highest Jockey Performance spread at 41-44. He rides 5/1 3^rd favourite Crane in the opener, 22/1 outsider Badlands in the 6.00, 2/5F Picual in the 3^rd race, 12/1 Contactless in the 7.00, sits out the 5^th race, and has his final ride on the 10/3 2^nd favourite Nationwide in the penultimate race. The Jockey Performance index awards 25 points for winning a race, 10 for 2^nd and 5 for 3^rd, and the fact Picual is so short seems to have encouraged some buying of Kingscote’s performance in that hope that odds-on Picual doesn’t disappoint and he then has 4 shots at picking up some more points with one more win spelling profit for buyers.

What other live sport is on tonight?

It’s been an exhilarating start to the Gallagher Premiership, and tonight’s game between Northampton Saints and Worcester Warriors should be another cracker. Saints have won three of their four games this season, and beaten Worcester at home 11 straight times, a run going back to 2007. Worcester won their season opener against London Irish but have lost four in a row since, a run they will be desperate to put a stop to. Worcester will have a new half-back combination, with exciting young fly-half Fin Smith fit to start for he first time this season, and England scrum-half Willi Heinz back from injury.

Worcester Multi-Points 64-76

Everything points to a home win tonight, with Northampton showing better form this season, and on a run of 11 straight wins in this fixture. Even if Worcester do go down to a 5^th straight Premiership loss, their returning players should at least ensure they put up a better showing than they have of late. Heinz is a top quality scrum-half, and Smith looks to be a future England fly-half given his performances for the England Under-20s. We’ve seen some buying in various Worcester performance markets, and  Multi-Points, which multiplies Worcester’s first half points by second, is one of them.