GEORGE ELEK: Looks for the best bets as Burnley face a trip to The Den

Fresh off a 9/2 winner in this column last weekend after Finn Azaz scored in Middlesbrough’s 3-3 draw at Norwich, it’s time to turn our attention to Sunday’s clash in south-east London between Millwall and Burnley.

Those who believe league tables provide a definitive guide to a team’s strength will likely be piling into the away side here given that the start to the campaign has kind of gone how the pre-season market expectation expected for both.

Scott Parker’s side are sitting pretty in 2nd having lost just one of their 12 games this season, and they have four more points than Vincent Kompany’s Burnley side had amassed after the same number of games on their way to fishing 10 points clear of the field on 101.

Back-to-back Millwall wins mean that the table makes for better reading than it did a week or so ago, but a team that were tipped to struggle are just four points clear of the relegation zone, although the congested nature of the league means that this still results in a relatively lofty 10th placed berth.

So why can’t the market split these two, with AK Bets 17/10 the pair, when the perception is that Burnley are clearly the better side?

As is often the answer these days, the answer is data. I’d be fairly confident that Burnley would have been clear favourites for this game back in the day where an access and understanding of xG data was an edge.

That isn’t really the case these days, and there is probably an argument that basic xG numbers, not accounting for gamestate or other circumstantial factors, can move the market too far towards the data-darlings, in which case maybe the league table punters are onto something.

With Millwall we have one of the biggest data outliers in the league, with an xG difference of 7 that isn’t reflected in a goal difference of +3. Game state will play a part in this though, with Millwall having only been ahead in 18.1% of their games so far, the 7th lowest figure in the league.

We are also early enough into the season that individual results can make basic xG ratio figures a bit noisy.

There was a 3-2 defeat at home to Watford, for example, in which Millwall won the xG 1.7-0.6. If we take that game out then Neil Harris’ side are tracking pretty close to where the numbers would suggest, so it can be futile to buy too much into the idea that they are due some wins, especially in the wake of two, the most recent of which was at Swansea and was largely thanks to their opponent’s profligacy in front of goal.

I’m reluctant to back Burnley though, who are still a relatively toothless attacking side who I think might struggle to break Millwall down. The long-shots have stopped flying in, and they’ve drawn a blank in three of their last six games.

Since losing 1-0 at Sunderland back in August they are unbeaten, but only one of their games has been settled by more than a solitary goal and 10 of the 11 have copped U2.5 goals. The 4-1 and 5-0 wins on the opening two days really are a distant memory.

Burnley are basically the side who destroy games of football in the Championship, and it doesn’t really matter who the opposition are. Their defence is so solid and their attack so impotent that it brings games down to 0s and 1s. This is all factored into the goal line though, with U2.5 only an unappealing 8/15.

Soon enough Burnley will come unstuck in one of these tight margin games and I’m willing to take a chance on that being the case here against a Millwall side who have only failed to score once at home this season. A 1-0 home win is 6/1 and looks a fair way to play a game that looks sure to be a tight affair.

1pt Millwall to win 1-0 @ 6/1