Sunderland – Gillingham, English Division 1
2004-03-23 21.00 CET
Pick: Sunderland
Stake: 3%
Odds: 1,55
Final reason for bet
· Sunderland seems to have gained some important spring form.
· Gillingham has a lot of injured players.
· Gillingham has been very bad on the road lately.
General comment about the game
Promotion hopefuls and sixth placed Sunderland welcomes 17th placed Gillingham to this Tuesday encounter in the English division one. Sunderland had difficulties to win at home earlier this season and during a period they drew five from six encounters at home. Although only managing two draws at home in the last two home games, they had four straight victories prior that. The draw against Stoke in the latest home game is nothing to argue about since Stoke has been in quite a good shape lately. Last weekend Sunderland beat an injury hit Reading away, a game ending 2-0 to Sunderland, after 0-0 at half time. The result was fair since Sunderland created most of the good goal scoring opportunities, although there were not too many of them. Sunderland will be able to field the same starting line up in this game. However there are some of the first team regulars still unavailable; defender Julio Arca (25 apps, 4 goals), striker Marcus Stewart (24(7) apps, 13 goals) and defender Jason McAteer (12 apps, 2 goals) are all missing through injuries.
Gillingham is one of those teams this year that has suffered most from injuries and probably this is one of the reasons for their bad form when playing on the road lately. With only two points from the last six games, they do not impress. Last game Gillingham played at home and after a hard game where Gillingham defended desperately in the second half they managed to win with 2-0 in a game that was very much affected by the hard wind. Ahead of this game Gillingham still have ten first team players unavailable and they will probably stay with the same starting line up that beat Rotherham.
We believe that an injury hit Gillingham will have no chance against a Sunderland who seems to have found some important spring form. We go for a medium stake on 3%.
Recent games for home team
|
2004-03-20 |
Reading-Sunderland |
0-2 |
|
2004-03-16 |
Sunderland-Stoke |
1-1 |
|
2004-03-13 |
Sunderland-West Ham |
2-0 |
|
2004-03-10 |
Sunderland-Preston |
3-3 |
|
2004-03-03 |
Walsall-Sunderland |
1-3 |
Recent games for away team
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2004-03-13 |
Gillingham-Rotherham |
2-0 |
|
2004-03-09 |
Norwich-Gillingham |
3-0 |
|
2004-03-06 |
Preston-Gillingham |
0-0 |
|
2004-02-28 |
Gillingham-Nottingham |
2-1 |
|
2004-02-21 |
Crystal Palace-Gillingham |
1-0 |
Home table
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Sunderland |
17 |
9 |
7 |
1 |
24-11 |
34 |
Away table
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Gillingham |
18 |
3 |
7 |
8 |
16-27 |
16 |
Links for this game
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// SportsObserver 040323
