SOCCER FOOTBALL 24H

"Madrid threw away a lead at Sevilla, lost to Celta Vigo at the Bernabéu, scraped past Málaga and were dumped out of the cup. Zinedine Zidane must be wondering what hit him." Real Betis v Barcelona Sunday, 11:00 Live on Sky Sports 2 Whisper it softly, but we could just have  a three-way title race  back on our hands. A Real Madrid cakewalk looked to be on the cards earlier this month, but their swift loss of form and confidence has breathed life into Sevilla and Barcelona's hopes of reeling them in over the second half of the season. Barça have looked like a team reborn  in the last few weeks, compiling a run of five successive wins across league and cup games. They were mightily impressive against Eibar last weekend, netting four unanswered goals to hand this column a nice winner, and produced another scintillating attacking display against Real Sociedad in the Copa del Rey on Thursday night (5-2). It's not all sunshine and rainbows at the Camp Nou. The a...

“The Cagliari home and away trend has been good to us in recent weeks, and the prices available suggest that it has yet to be fully acknowledged. So we should keep trying to take advantage.” Cagliari v Bologna Sunday, 14:00 Bologna may be in form, and may have kept a clean sheet in four of their last five Serie A games, but I still  don't see any real reason why Over 2.5 Goals are trading at   2.12  ahead of their trip to Sardinia. Cagliari's home and away habits have been discussed in this column until we're all blue in the face, so suffice to say that recent evidence tells us that they play in a completely different way at home and on their travels and we can profit from that. Away, Massimo Rastelli's side try to make themselves hard to beat and play it tight. Their last five away matches in Serie A have gone Under 2.5 Goals. At home, they're expansive and irresistible, meaning that  every single one of their home games has gone Over 2.5 Goals. And...