Just two days to go until the start of the football season south of the border, dear reader, and excitement in the Bisogno household is reaching near fever pitch!

With most of my wagers now in situ, I am looking forward to cheering home my teams on the first Saturday of many in the 2007/8 season.

You’ll know by now that I’m expecting big things from Darren Bent, and have backed him accordingly with both Skybet (top British scorer, 13/2), and expekt.com (top League scorer outright, 24/1).

I am also rowing in with him to be top Spurs scorer at 5/2 with Hills, and doubling that up with Benni McCarthy to be top Blackburn scorer at a very generous 7/4 (same firm obviously). This cheeky little double comes in at 8.625/1 and I rate that a cracking bet, so get down to Hills and have some!

(With so many eggs in the Bent’y basket, an early season leg break will not be what the doctor ordered!)

I’ve also backed Luton (16/1, Skybet, Hills, Sporting Odds) and Watford (9/1, general) each way.

I’m not as confident on any side as I was about Hartlepool last year (hedged out for a nice few grand) but, nevertheless, I expect to draw on at least the place part of these wagers.

For the divisions, I’ll be doing the following perm with Sporting Odds:

Premier Man Utd (11/8)
Championship Watford (9/1), Sheffield United (9/1) (preview to follow)
League One Nottingham Forest (4/1), Luton (16/1)
League Two Peterborough (7/2), Darlington (14/1)

8 x £5 dream ticket accumulators, to return between £2671 and £30,281. Of course, its unlikely, but you’ve got to be in it to win it!

Talking of being in it to win it, as promised, “let’s take a look at what you would have won”, as Jim Bowen might have said in his Bullseye pomp, before two podgy darters heaved a speedboat onto the stage…

No speedboats up for grabs in the Fantasy Football alas (not sure what you’d do with one if you lived in London or Derby anyway..!), but plenty of punting prizes…

The winner of Nag3 FFL will receive a copy of ‘Against The Crowd’ by Alan Potts, a copy of ‘Betting For A Living’ by Nick Mordin, a copy of TrainerFlatStats 2008, a copy of TrainerTrackStats (jumps version) 2008/9, and a year’s subscription to Laying System. That’s a total value of over £400!

The runner up will receive copies of TFS 2008 and TTS 2008/9 (value £76).

And each monthly prize winner will receive a month’s free subscription to Laying System, value £27. (Note that the August and September prize will be combined for the two months, as will the April / May prize. To be clear, that’s no monthly prize for August or April. Instead, points gained in those months will be added to the following month’s points to make for a ‘manager of the month’).

As well as all that, you’ll receive the undoubted kudos and “can’t put a price on that” value of being mentioned in the blog! ;o)

In total, that’s over £700’s worth of gear up for grabs, just for sticking a team in. Oh, and Premier League also put up some cash prizes as well, should you do so well in our league that you’re also challenging for overall honours!

It’s all free so get your team entered at:

http://fantasy.premierleague.com/

League entry code is 533724-97750

Pip pip!
Matt