FIVE Coupon-Busters From the Weekend
Despite there being a wide range of bankers come in over the weekend across all four tiers of English football such as Southampton’s win at Villa, Burton’s win at Colchester and Oxford’s win at home to Hartlepool, the weekend certainly wasn’t without its’ fair share of upsets.
Punters would have been cursing at Liverpool after they squandered a 2-0 lead at home to Newcastle on Saturday. After going two up through Daniel Sturridge’s second-minute goal and Adam Lallana’s thunderbolt, the red-hot Reds couldn’t hold on as Jack Colback brought the four-win streak to an end.
Another huge upset was down in Devon where the Football League’s basement boys put a dagger in Plymouth’s promotion hopes as three first-half goals from Clevid Dikamona, Matthew Cash and Christian Doidge sent the travelling side in at the break 3-0 up. Despite a second half fightback, Plymouth could only muster two of their three-goal deficit and lost 3-2.
League One promotion chasers Gillingham were next to prevent any bookie bashing as they came from a goal behind twice against 19th-placed Shrewsbury before being downed by Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro in the 81st minute.
The biggest shock in non-league came in the National League where second-placed Forest Green suffered just their ninth league loss of the season against relegation-threatened Halifax thanks to a Shaquille McDonald strike 20 minutes from time.
League Two champions would certainly have been candidates for an away win on Saturday but failed to beat Yeovil who are 20th in the football league’s bottom tier. The Cobblers found themselves a goal down after Harry Cornick’s sixth-minute goal and despite Nicky Adams’ equaliser ten minutes from half time, the champions couldn’t nick a winner in Somerset, to the despair of a few punters.