The Saturday evening kick-off in the Premier League on Saturday saw Everton take on Newcastle at Goodison Park. The match saw the Toffees have a goal chalked off by VAR and Newcastle miss a golden chance to win the match from the penalty shot.
While the match finished goalless, it wasn't your typical 0-0 draw and both teams will feel aggrieved that they failed to take away all three points particularly as both managers are among the favourites to be the next PL manager to leave. Was the result a shock and did any bookie bashing take place?
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What were the odds on a 0-0 draw?
Before kick-off, the bookies didn't believe that the match would end goalless. Betfred had priced a 0-0 draw at 14/1 so there was plenty of money to be won by backing this result. In contrast, a 1-1 draw was priced at 6/1, a 2-2 draw was priced at 10/1 while any draw was priced at 11/4.
Those who backed the match to finish 0-0 with a £10 stake would have taken £150 from the bookies including their original stake.
What else were people backing?
Popular bets before the match included Dwight McNeil to score anytime at. The Everton winger netted a brace last week in the Toffees' comeback victory against Crystal Palace and there was a feeling that the streaky forward would add more goals this weekend. Alas, he failed to find the back of the net against Newcastle.
Those who backed Abdoulaye Doucoure to score first at 14/1 will feel as if they have been robbed. The midfielder thought he had opened the scoring after 18 minutes but VAR ruled that he had drifted offside before heading the ball past Nick Pope.
Another popular pre-match bet was for both teams to score at 1/2. Prior to today, Everton had scored in their last six matches in all competitions while Saturday marked the first time this season that Newcastle have failed to score.
Three big surprises from Everton vs Newcastle
A tame affair
Matches at Goodison do sometimes have a tendency to reach boiling point so plenty of cards were expected on Saturday. In the end, just three bookings were dished out by the referee, Craig Pawson, which was a surprise given that 40+ booking points was priced at 4/9 before kick-off.
A first booking of the season
Dwight McNeil only picked up two bookings throughout the 2023/24 seasons and was priced at 13/2 to be carded on Saturday. Just before half-time, the winger earned his first booking of the season for a rough challenge on Bruno Guimaraes.
A lack of corners for the Toffees
Everton were priced at 1/40 to win over 0.5 corners on Saturday evening with the Toffees seen as absolute bankers to at least get themselves one corner on the day. Incredibly, though, Everton went the entire match without taking a single corner.
Andy is tipster who has been calling Golf tournaments for several years across many different platforms. He has covered all tournaments from the Asian Tour to the Masters.
