The latest football betting odds have Chelsea at 8/5 to win the Premier League title. West Brom, on the other hand, are bottom and are now 3/4 for relegation straight back to the Championship. The Baggies could not have asked for a tougher start to their bid for a sustained stay in the top flight and they certainly look to have their work cut out if they are to shake off their yo-yo club status this time around. To be fair though, the prospect of a newly promoted side going to Stamford Bridge and getting anything other than a thumping was never likely.

For Aston Villa the season got off to a flyer with a 3-nil win over West Ham. Can they match or improve on their run of sixth place finishes now that Martin O’Neill has gone? We shall have to see – the opposition that they faced on Saturday looked pretty feeble. Avram Grant looks to have his work cut out steering the Hammers out of relegation trouble this season.

Another side with a new manager is Fulham and Mark Hughes will have been relieved that his side got a valuable point from their goalless visit to the Reebok Stadium. Bolton lie in eighth place and Fulham in ninth after this opening game and a mid-table finish for both sides seems a strong possibility.

Probably the biggest surprise in the crop of games over the weekend was the 0-4 win by Blackpool at hapless Wigan. Before this game Blackpool were seen by many as certainties for relegation and the fact that they managed to chalk up a resounding away win on the first day of the season is a fantastic achievement. Tellingly, however, even though they lie second in the table, the online betting web sites think that they will be relegated with odds of 1/3 being offered. And Wigan? Last season, they suffered 8-0 and 9-1 beatings and if they repeat a performance like Saturday’s against a top team they could well get further pastings this year. The Latics are 6/5 for relegation.

Wolves currently occupy the fourth spot and if they could finish the season in that position it would be a huge shock. This will be their second season back in the top flight. They finished 15th last season and this win against Stoke 2-1 at Molineux would seem to show that they are set to thrive in the Premier League. Stoke were unlucky to lose and would be a good bet for another mid-table finish.

Blackburn kicked off their campaign with a 1-0 victory over Everton. Bit of a surprise here as some had predicted that Everton could be a real force this season. All three points were gifted to the Rovers after a blunder by Tim Howard.

The away point that Birmingham collected on their visit to Sunderland was enough to push them into 5th place. Sunderland are 7th. Both sides should be capable of avoiding the relegation zone this year.

Money-bags Manchester City got an away point at Spurs after drawing 0-0 at White Hart Lane. Despite this setback the Cheshire side are 7/1 to win the title. Tottenham are 11/4 for a top 4 finish.

Monday evening saw the last of the opening games played when Manchester United beat Newcastle, another of the promoted teams, 3-0. The Red Devils are 2/1 to become Champions this year after narrowly missing out to Chelsea last season.

Early days of course, and there is sure to be many a twist and turn in the course of the new campaign for the managers, the players, the clubs and the fans. It is what makes us keep watching!

Having a good squad of players who play on a regular basis, is a sure fire way to avoid these circumstances – where you lose unnecessary points for substitutes who don?t actually play or score much.

Instead of investing in all the expensive players and having 3 useless substitutes, it may be worthwhile compromising and purchasing 3 playing substitutes, who have the ability to score some points. There are plenty of bargain basement players, who have the ability to score you points on a weekly basis.

We have regularly featured lists of cheap players on this site who have good scoring potential. This week we will focus on the 4 positions – goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders and strikers, and list you the value added players, we think you could add to your team, to make a difference when you get caught out by squad rotation or injuries. The first special on goalkeepers will be published tomorrow.

The idea of the game is that you pick a team from the Premier League or the Championship from the fixtures each weekend. If your team avoids defeat then you pass through to the next round. If your team loses, you’re out. To make things more interesting, not to mention more challenging, and to stop people picking Manchester United every week, you cannot pick the same team twice.

Sounds complicated? I thought so when I first came across the site, but in reality it is a really simple game to play. But it takes a lot of forward thinking and strategy to play with any degree of success. You will need to study the fixture list for the weeks in advance to plan your strategy due to the game’s unique point of only being able to pick a team once through the course of the season.

Do you go with “the big 4″ for the first four weeks and hope they’ll get you that banker result that will guarantee that you get at least into week 5 still in the competition? Or do you hold those banker cards until the later stages, hoping that you can select positive results in the meantime from the smaller clubs?

There’s a lot to think about, but the important factor to remember is that to pass through to the next round, you only need to select a team NOT to lose. That makes things just that little bit easier, especially once you get to a stage where perhaps you have already chosen the bigger, better, more consistent sides. You may not think, for example, that Wolves will beat Fulham at home, but the odds are improved when you can afford for them to draw the game as well. But as I’m sure you are all aware, football is an unpredictable game at times.

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The site runs individual games starting at the beginning of each month (August until February), which will each last until everybody is eliminated from the game or until the end of the season, whichever comes first. The winner will be the “last man standing”, the player or players who have remained unbeaten for the longest period, and they will take home the jackpot cash prize fund from the money created from entries to that particular game.

If there is more than one winner, then the money is shared equally between them. The site also awards cash prizes to the top 20% of players, so you have a good chance of winning at least something. And with the site becoming ever more popular, the good news is that the prizes at stake are increasing all the time. The bad news with that is that you have all the more people to try and beat! But if you do well, then the rewards are well worth winning. Entry to the game is ?10, and you can submit multiple entries to each of the monthly games, which can provide you with up to eight months of playing time, so it’s good value for money.

It’s great that there are variants of the regular fantasy football games that are already available. As in all of these games, the sportingko.com game is all about strategy. Rather than picking the right players at the right times as in other fantasy football competitions, here you must study the fixtures, not just for this week or the next few weeks but for the season long, and select a formula that will keep you in the game for the longest possible amount of time. But the thing that makes all of these games work though is the great sport of football.

Born in the Fazakerley Hospital in Liverpool, Merseyside, the boy wonder graduated from the youth academy of Everton, a local club with to which would pledge as well as break an allegiance.

He made his premier league debut for Everton in 2002, and became the youngest goal scorer in the English top flight, five days before he turned seventeen. The scorcher against the Gunners is remembered as one of the forward?s best. James Milner, and James Vaughn later surpassed the record. Even though it is not the current record, an accomplishment of this magnitude is surely worthy of remembrance.

The 2003/04 season saw the youngster become career oriented, when he spotted the incapability of his mother club to secure a European Cup spot. After a transfer request, the Toffees response was to let go of the future star for nothing less than ?50 million, and proceeded to offer him a new contract at the club. Needless to say, the offer was promptly rejected, and this led to a bidding war between Newcastle and Manchester United to procure the services of the player in question.

At one point it was rumoured that the Toon was to be the destination, for a fee of around ?18.5 million, but it was to be the Red Devils who would go on to get the signature of the Englishman for a price of ?31 million. This is one of the most expensive transfers for a player in his teenage years.

At Man United, Rooney has gone on to become a star player, with a formidable number of appearances and goals. His international career has gone well so far, with the striker showing great grit and determination in his recovery race to be fit and play in the 2006 World Cup.

As Rooney goes from strength to strength, it is to be seen as to how well the sun shines on this strong lad that currently calls Old Trafford home.

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