You BetBlues are top pick in four golden opportunities in Premier League
Homes fires will burn bright, especially for Chelsea, Leicester, Swansea and West Ham
The English Premier League is an endlessly fascinating puzzle for punters and usually extremely tricky to solve, but occasionally the answers seem obvious. This weekend is one of those occasions and, while it is wise to beware of hidden traps, there are at least four bets that appear to be golden opportunities.
The first is Chelsea to beat Arsenal in tomorrow's big match. Almost everything points to a home win, given Chelsea's excellent record at Stamford Bridge under Jose Mourinho.
In his two spells at Stamford Bridge, Mourinho has won 64 out of 82 home matches in the Premier League at a rate of 78 per cent and lost only once. Remarkably, the win rate is even higher in the big matches - last season they won every home game against the other teams in the top seven.
In direct contrast to Chelsea's strong home form, Arsenal remain weak away to the elite sides. Last season, they lost five out of six away to the other teams in the top seven
That was not such an unusual phenomenon for a Mourinho team. In his first spell, Chelsea were also dominant at home in the big games. Taking both spells together, only once has rivals from the old big four (the others being Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool) conceded against a Mourinho-led team at Stamford Bridge and avoided defeat.
When a Mourinho side have scored at home against a big-four rival, their record is nine wins and one draw out of 10 (10 wins out of 11 if you add in last season's 2-1 victory over Manchester City, now the biggest threat to Mourinho). It has to be noted that the one big-four team to score a draw against Mourinho at Stamford Bridge was Arsenal, but that 1-1 result was back in 2006. More recent evidence suggests Arsenal will be unable to stop Chelsea scoring.
In direct contrast to Chelsea's strong home form, Arsenal remain weak away to the elite sides. Last season, they lost five out of six away to the other teams in the top seven, with their sole win coming with their only clean sheet (1-0 at Tottenham).
Arsenal often fell to pieces when they conceded on the road in big matches last season (losing 6-3 at Manchester City, 5-1 at Liverpool, 3-0 at Everton and, of course, 6-0 at Chelsea) and their 2-0 defeat by Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League suggests the problems still exist against top-class home teams.