Burnley vs Blackburn Betting Preview

Burnley against Blackburn has the potential to be an explosive affair for the Sunday lunchtime BBC viewers. The East Lancashire neighbours are seperated by just eight miles, yet in the past 22 years have only met twice.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />The Clarets are still in the competition thanks to beating Liverpool in the 3rd round, as was expected at the time by Bettingchoice. In the fourth round the slightly easier task of defeating Bournemouth was accomplished.Burnley have in fact enjoyed six straight FA Cup victories at Turf Moor. For the record the Championship outfit can be backed at 11/4 for the win, while Rovers are priced at 5/4. Interestingly the last nine times these teams have met, there hasn't been a draw. 9/4 are the odds on this particular trend not continuing. The market that is going to receive plenty of attention for this match is the bookings. When two bitter rivals meet in the fifth round of the Cup having not played each other for five years, punters are going to naturally assume a fesity encouter can be expected. The price quoted by the spreads firms is 46-50 (yellow=10pts, red=25pts). While there is plenty of hype about how much rivalry there is between the clubs, this doesn't always translate into numerous cards being shown. When the two sides met in 2000 for the first time after a 17 year break, there was a sending off but only three other cautions. The other meeting that season had only two players booked. The next important factor to investigate is the referee. There was a time when the mere mention of Mike Dean would have spread betting punters jumping for joy. It was only a few seasons ago when the Wirral official would nearly always reward buyers of the books for his games. Unfortunately those days aren't quite so frequent. The past few weeks has seen very little paper work for Mike Dean with only a handful of players cautioned - less than two per Premiership game since November. There was though a period earlier in the season when Dean did flash his cards on a regular basis. In a three game spell in September/October, he booked 14 and sent off 6. Whether Mike Dean is capable of repeating that miny hectic period is not certain. Blackburn are no angels when it comes to discipline (they have more cautions than any other club in the Premiership). Burnley have had a total of 54 cautions this term. So having looked at all the factors, we must now make a decision on whether buying at 50 would be a prudent move. All the ingredients appear to be in place, except for perhaps the most important one - the referee. Can we trust Mike Dean to show a card enough times when his recent record suggests he is being rather lenient? With the concern surrounding the main official, I am going to steer away from a recommendation. That said I wouldn't want to put anyone off placing a trade in-running should the situation demand the quote be at the right level.