Tips for Euro 2016

Good evening ladies and gentle readers, on the eve of Euro 2016 its time for my irregular betting and trading tips for Euro 2016! And without further ado...

Starting off big, outright lay of France to win the thing @ 4.5

We've all seen it before, being the home nation artificially shortens a countries price. You will never convince me in a decade of Sundays that France are a 4.4 shot. Outright lay and I will say this now France wont win Euro 2016.

Group B winner a back of England @ 1.85

Heresy I hear you say, how can you tip the noisy neighbours from over the bridge? But hear me out! Look at the price! Look at the qualifying form! Look at the opposition! You will never get a price this good on a team in this situation.

Lay of Turkey to finish top 2 in Group D @ 3.05

A small lay as I favour Czech Republic or Croatia to qualify alongside Germany.

Lay of Sweden to finish bottom of Group E @ 2.90

I think Group D is the group of death that will see Rep Ire wiped out as the rest battle for the top spot.

Albania V Switzerland back over 2.5 goals @ 2.78

Turkey V Croatia lay under 5 booking points.

and thats it for the moment, I hope to see you on the other side with a slightly swollen purse.

The Euro 2016 Draw

So ladies and gentle readers the draw for Euro 2016 has finally taken place and for the first time in what feels like a life time Wales were in it. Going into it I was dreaming of the glamour teams and a group involving the likes of Spain, Germany, Italy, Croatia and Sweden. I wanted a proper group full of mouth watering fixtures and slowly one by one the teams were drawn;

Up first we had the noisy neighbours next door, Woy Hodgsons boring army. The only top ranked team I didn't want as they usually stink up the tournaments with boring matches over the last few tournaments. Plus the media and fleet street regulars will be ignoring the Welsh point of view and covering the match from England's point of view with a 'Battle of Britain' mantra nobody cares about.

Please pretend there something witty written here - I have no Slovakia material.

Up last we had Russia, now its getting juicy, if I could take you back a decade dear reader, the closest Wales have ever got to the Euros before was Euro 2004 where we finished second in our group to Italy, cue highlights of the classic Wales 2 Italy 1 match;

We were drawn against Russia in the playoffs and after a hard thought 0-0 in Moscow they scored from a badly conceded free kick at Cardiff to knock us out. A proper grudge match here and the standout fixture of the group.

Well my thoughts are that its a disappointing unsexy group but we've got a decent chance of second place, the countdown to summer 2016 starts now...