Sky Bet Championship and Copa del Rey tips for 4 February

Football betting tips: Tuesday best bets

1.5pts A red card to be shown in Atletico vs Getafe (20:30) at 16/5 (Paddy Power, Betfair)

0.5pts Both teams to receive a red card Atletico vs Getafe (20:30) at 45/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair, William Hill)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair

Atletico Madrid vs Getafe

Jake Osgathorpe

This one could get spicy. Not only are Atletico Madrid and Getafe fierce local rivals, with both clubs built on a culture of physicality and dark arts, but on Tuesday we add a single-leg quarter-final into the mix.

Throw in card happy referee Guillermo Cuadra Fernandez and we could be in for something special.

The last 20 head-to-heads have seen an eye-watering average of 6.45 cards per game.

Not only that, but there has been A RED CARD SHOWN in 12 of those contests; 16/5 looks a big price for it to happen again.

Expanding on the referee appointment, I cannot understate how happy I was going through his history.

In 22/23 he flashed 13 red cards in just 25 matches, dishing out a red in four straight games at one point.

He also had a triple-red card game involving Atletico Madrid that saw BOTH TEAMS GET A RED CARD. He refereed Getafe twice and brandished 17 yellows and a red.

Last season Fernandez handed out nine red cards in 27 matches, and had another triple-red game, this time featuring Getafe, again with both teams having a man sent off. He took charge of one further Getafe match and handed out another red.

The two Atleti games he oversaw resulted in and 17 yellows and one red card.

This season it’s been more of the same, with four reds in his last 10 matches, two of those dismissals coming in Atleti games in this very competition.

His two Getafe games this season have seen 19 yellows, with him yet to get the red out.

Third time’s a charm, we hope.

Already advised

0.5pt No first goalscorer in Burnley vs Oxford (19:45) at 15/2 (Sky Bet)

0.5pt Burnley to win by one goal vs Oxford (19:45) at 12/5 (bet365)

2pts QPR to beat Blackburn and under 3.5 goals (19:45) at 9/4 (Sky Bet)

0.5pt QPR to beat Blackburn and under 2.5 goals (19:45) at 4/1 (Sky Bet)

Burnley vs Oxford

Jake Osgathorpe

As documented by Tom Carnduff last week, Burnley have a real problem.

Unfortunately, you can’t nil-nil your way to the Premier League. And, right on queue, the Clarets dropped another blankety-blank at Portsmouth at the weekend.

Scott Parker’s men have featured in 10 goalless draws, one shy of tying the record of 11 currently held by Preston’s 2005/06 team.

It’s not hard to see why they’ve seen so few goals so regularly either, with the Clarets averaging just 1.05 xGF per game – an attacking process that ranks them as the fourth worst in the league – while allowing just 0.84 xGA per game which is the second best.

Fine-margin football. Unfortunately for fans heading to Turf Moor on Tuesday, they will be witnessing a game between two sides of the same ilk.

Oxford have built themselves in the same way as Burnley since the arrival of Gary Rowett, with their xG process showing as much (0.94 xGF, 1.01 xGA per game).

It’s a style of play that has yielded 19 points from a possible 30 and moved the U’s well clear of the drop zone, and it’s a style that could well nullify their title-chasing opponents on Tuesday.

While perhaps lazy to just go, ‘they keep drawing 0-0 so let’s back NO FIRST GOALSCORER’ the data stacks up on both teams, and the price of 8/1 looks larger than I had anticipated.

After all, this is a bet that has landed in five of Burnley’s last seven matches, an obscene strike rate.

Obviously the influx of new signings such as Jonjo Shelvey and Marcus Edwards could see them become more expansive, so we’ll just go half a point on this occasion.

For that reason, we’ll also put half a point on BURNLEY TO WIN BY ONE GOAL at 12/5.

Eight of the Clarets’ 15 wins this season have come by a one-goal margin, with their superior quality helping them edge extremely tight games.

QPR vs Blackburn

Joe Townsend

QPR were flying up until 10 days ago, on a run of four straight victories and with a record of W8 D3 L1 from 12 Championship games.

A couple of narrow losses, at home to Sheffield Wednesday and away to Millwall across which they conceded four goals from just 0.99 expected goals (xG) should not put us off backing them against a Blackburn team who ended a run of three successive defeats with a hard-fought derby victory over Preston on Friday.

Rangers had won their five previous home matches before the visit of Wednesday, with only one failing to see UNDER 3.5 GOALS land.

That 3-1 win over Watford is the only time this term Marti Cifuentes’ side have won a match and there have been more than three goals scored.

As for Rovers, 29 of their last 30 fixtures have involved under 3.5 goals.

A match-up between two low-scoring teams has me happy to also back QPR TO WIN AND UNDER 2.5 GOALS at a standout 4/1, albeit to smaller stakes.

Odds correct at 1545 GMT (03/02/25)

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