The 25th PSL season comes to an end this week, with two full rounds of matches scheduled for midweek and the weekend. While the champions have been crowned, there are still many matters to be decided – from CAF positions, Top8 spots and even the question of relegation is still up in the air. Put simply, there is a lot at stake, which often can go two ways – teams playing safe football to protect their current positions or desperate teams throwing everything to gain precious points and goals. Our betting guide focuses on a few of those games, with the 500th goal of the season also anticipated.
480 – There have been 480 goals scored in the DSTV Prem this season, with 16 games to play. Only two seasons in PSL history have seen less than 500 goals.
17:00 – Kaizer Chiefs v Golden Arrows
Chiefs need a win to guarantee they will not be in the relegation playoffs, but even a draw may be enough. They host Arrows, a club that has not won away at Chiefs in nearly 10 years, with five losses and three draws to show for their efforts. That said, Arrows have rediscovered their scoring form recently, scoring Over 1.5 and then Over 2.5 in successive games after three successive blanks in the previous three.
They’ll look at the table and see an opponent leaking goals for fun – Chiefs have never conceded more goals in a season than they have in 2020/21 (35). The last time Chiefs conceded 35 goals in a season was in 1997/98, and even that was a 34-game campaign.
Match Facts
1 – Since the end of January, Chiefs have kept one clean sheet in the league – the fewest of all top-flight sides.
That said, the Soweto giants have failed to score just once in that time, also the fewest of all sides.
17:00 – Baroka v Orlando Pirates
The zig-zag Pirates season continued when they fell to a 1-0 defeat against TS Galaxy over the weekend. Handicapped by an early red card (their first ever red card in 61 matches under Josef Zinnbauer), Pirates huffed and puffed but failed to bring the house down. It’s four away matches in a row now that Pirates have failed to score, contributing to a nine match winless run away from home – their worst since the late 1990s. An away match in Limpopo province is the last thing they needed 72 hours later.
The Bucs have never lost away to Baroka, but even then they have only won once in 5 games. Their hosts are in the fight for a first ever Top8 finish and have kept successive clean sheets for the first time this season. It has never happened that Baroka keep three consecutive clean sheets in the same season.
On the other hand, they rarely score:
Match Facts
100 – It’s been 100 days since Baroka scored Over 1.5 goals in a league game: a 2-1 win over Leopards back in February.
17:00 – Amazulu v Swallows FC
After lighting up the league between January and April this year, Benni McCarthy’s AmaZulu have begun to stutter at a crucial stage. It would come as a hammer blow for the top brass at the club, if a team that looked like title challengers a few weeks ago ends up outside the CAF positions. Successive league defeats have increased that risk. The solace is that the two defeats have been very narrow (1-0 on both occasions to excellent Goal-of-the-Month type long range efforts). It’s upfront where the problems seem to lie. Over 4.5 goals scored against Cape Town City is a distant memory now, with the three games in May seeing Under 1.5, Under 0.5 and Under 0.5 goals. If you missed out on the other 19 occasions to cash in on a Swallows FC draw this season, there are still two games to play.
Match Facts
7 – Swallows have drawn 19 games this season, extending the new PSL record. They’ve also drawn seven in a row, a first in the top-flight since Jomo Cosmos drew 7 in a row in the 2007/8 season.
A cautious Swallows and a misfiring AmaZulu lead us one way:
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