Read what bet365's Steve Freeth had to say as Manchester City and Chelsea secured their passages into the FA Cup final.
Weekend Review
We’ve been on a decent run recently, but it all came crashing down this weekend with a number of blows both home and abroad.
Manchester City fought back to beat Southampton in the FA Cup and Arsenal completed a favourites five-timer in the Premier League on Saturday. Chelsea’s victory over Leeds on Sunday added to the woes as bet365 customers celebrated on the accumulator front.
I suppose we can count ourselves slightly fortunate that Manchester City replied rather quickly to Finn Azaz’s opener with 6/1 being the biggest price that the Citizens went to in-running. It was still a costly comeback with Pep Guardiola’s team now 6/4 for the domestic treble, having been 100/1 earlier in the season.
Arsenal did what they needed to do by claiming three points against Newcastle. We can’t split the Gunners and Manchester City in the outright betting right now – 10/11 the pair and it’s 9/2 to be settled by goal difference.
At the other end of the table, Spurs and West Ham also kept their nerve to collect maximum points for favourite backers, although the Hammers looked to have blown it when Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall levelled it up on 88 minutes with Tottenham winning at Wolves.
Step forward Everton-slayer Callum Wilson to score in stoppage time, keeping West Ham out of the bottom three and meaning that Pablo backers also collected thanks to the ‘Sub On, Play On’ offer having been substituted for the match-winner.
Liverpool’s 3-1 win at home to Crystal Palace was another one for the accumulators and Fulham also went off as favourites against Aston Villa to make it five from five in the Premier League.
Celtic won on Saturday, but we clawed some back on multiples business with Rangers' defeat to Motherwell. However, punters stuck with Hearts in-play with Hibernian having two players sent off in the Edinburgh derby. With the clock ticking down and Hearts going odds-against, there was hope that we would get away with it, but Blair Spittal put paid to that in the 87th minute.
In Europe, we saw Bayern Munich make nine changes for the clash at Mainz and the hosts race into a 3-0 half-time lead. Vincent Kompany then called for the cavalry, consisting of Olise, Musiala and Kane. The Bundesliga champions touched 22/1 in-play, having already paid out on Mainz due to our ‘2 Goals Ahead Early Payout’ concession.
Our fate was sealed with a predictable winning goal from the Ballon d’Or favourite Kane completing a remarkable comeback as the champions won 4-3.
We also saw the value of our ‘Early Payout’ offer in La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1 when we paid out on Real Sociedad (7/4), Inter (2/5) and Lorient (21/20) despite all three teams failing to win after going two goals clear.
Trading Talk
🇫🇷 There's a new Ballon d'Or contender (𝟮𝟴/𝟭 → 𝟵/𝟮).@stevefreeth returns with Trading Talk.
— bet365 (@bet365) April 27, 2026
Any odds displayed were correct at the time of writing and are subject to fluctuation.
