All football fans love an away day.
The early alarm and that instant buzz of excitement. Cracking open that first beer on the coach. The chants. The banter with the home fans. Experiencing a new ground. A new city. Ideally, heading home having seen your team claim all three points.
Well, one Premier Bet punter took five away days straight to his bet slip on Saturday 18th February, and ran with it.
First up, title challengers Arsenal visited Aston Villa as they looked to reclaim top spot from Manchester City, who had beaten the Gunners 3-1 at the Emirates Stadium in midweek.
Mikel Arteta’s side were odds-on 1.86 favourites to win at Villa Park, and our Big Winner almost fell at the first hurdle, with Villa twice leading in the game. However, with the scoreline delicately poised at 2-2 in injury-time, Jorginho’s thunderbolt from distance bounced off the crossbar and onto former Arsenal goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez’s head, before ending up in the back of the net.
There was a certain irony to Martinez being the (own) goalscorer after he had been booked for constantly time-wasting against his former club. The World Cup winner was subsequently caught upfield from a corner, with Gabriel Martinelli racing through to tap into an empty net. 4-2 Arsenal. What a game. And leg 1 complete for our punter.
Onto the 3pm (GMT) kick-off’s, then. This is where our Big Winner got braver. Bournemouth 4.90 underdogs in a relegation six-pointer at Wolves. Fulham 5.20 underdogs in a top half of the table clash at Brighton. Rock-bottom Southampton 8.60 longshots away to Chelsea.
Incredibly, all three outsiders won 1-0 to claim three crucial points apiece on their travels. A bad day for Graham Potter, whose managerial role at Chelsea will continue to come under intense scrutiny after James Ward-Prowse dispatched the 17th free-kick of his PL career. But what a day for our punter so far.
From a 2,000F CFA ($3.29) stake, our bettor stood to win an incredible sum of 2,510,484F CFA ($4,127.39) if Liverpool could complete the job away to Newcastle. The Toon Army had lost just once in the league all season – and that was at Anfield in September courtesy of Fabio Carvalho’s injury-time strike.
Despite coming under significant early pressure, Darwin Nunez fired the visitors into a 10th-minute lead with a decisive finish from Trent Alexander-Arnold. Seven minutes later, Liverpool’s lead was doubled via Cody Gakpo’s second goal in two games.
The job appeared to be done when Newcastle were reduced to 10-men, with Nick Pope shown a red card for handling the ball outside of the area and denying Mohamed Salah a clear goalscoring opportunity in the process. Only 22 minutes into the game and our bettor could breathe a huge sigh of relief, with the Reds ultimately holding onto a valuable 2-0 win.
Five selections turned 2,000F CFA into 2,510,484F CFA. And this particular punter certainly wasn’t alone this weekend. We saw Big Winners land accumulators at odds of 90,903/1, 43,480/1, 29,793/1 and 26,057/1, to name four other examples. The former won 4,540,578.40F CFA ($7,464.99) from just a 27F CFA ($0.04) stake. Sensational scenes.
Fancy potentially joining them this weekend? Head to Premier Bet and responsibly place your bets. With a bit of luck, you could be a Big Winner too!