Jones Knows Notebook: 40/1 goalscorer bet to land against scruffy Spurs | OneFootball

English Premier League

Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou

Lewis Jones - aka Jones Knows - has goalscoring centre-backs on his mind as he runs the data to delve into Tottenham's continued problems with defending set pieces...

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Long-term profits to be made with centre backs

When you talk to punters about their most successful punts in football betting, usually a centre back scoring is involved. I know from personal experience over the years from my betting, I'm certainly in healthy profit from taking this long-term strategy of finding big-priced defenders to score in certain spots.

Shane Duffy, Gareth McAuley, Harry Maguire and Jake Cooper, I salute you.

A bit like with golf betting, you only need to find two or three winners a season to put you in front. If you have the patience and long-term focus for profit, backing central defenders to score, especially in this era where set piece coaches are having a huge affect on goals being scored, is a profitably strategy.

One of the key aspects in finding value in this type of market and knowing when to pull the trigger is assessing how bad a team is at defending set pieces.

An inability to defend from such scenarios outweighs an attacking team's set piece numbers for me.

I'm always looking for vulnerable teams in that regard and not just their actual record at defending set pieces but digging into their underlying numbers can paint a truer picture of how badly organised a team are from corners and free-kicks.

An underused tactic in this regard is analysing the level of chance a team is offering up per corner which gives a far more rounded and clearer picture. For example, the vintage Manchester City side may have only conceded three goals a season from set pieces but if they're only shipping two corners per game it can cloudy the picture slightly.

So, heading into the next set of Premier League fixtures, which teams are vulnerable based on this per corner data?

Terrible Tottenham remain so lacklustre defensivley

There will be no surprises for who tops this list.

It's just how they play, mate.

Tottenham Hotspur.

They don't care about defending under Ange Postecoglou and they certainly don't care about being strong at defending set pieces. From their 96 corners faced this season, they are offering up a shot every 0.52 corners which is the worst record in the Premier League.

Some may have thought that conceding just five goals from set pieces this season points to an improvement but these underlying figures show they can be got at, especially without their first choice centre-back pairing of Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero.

It's Wolves next up for them on Saturday and looking at the prices on offer, backing Santiago Bueno in the shots market, he is the outsider in the field at 6/4 for one or more shots, makes perfect sense.

He's only had two shots in total this season but under Vitor Pereira, he's gone up for every set piece in his two games in charge and did flash a header just wide in the 3-0 win over Leicester.

Go on, Santiago, add your name to list of centre back goalscoring legends.

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