BetVictor’s weekly column: Albion and the Grand National

Prior to the draw at Ewood, Brighton had suffered defeats against Ipswich, Sheffield Wednesday and Middlesbrough, respectively. The defeat against Borough looks to have all but ended the Seagulls’ chances of nicking Premier League football, or has it?

BetVictor make the Seagulls 3/1 to claim a top-six spot and 14/1 to be promoted. A trip to champions elect aside, Albion have some very winnable fixtures throughout the month of April.

Games with the struggling trio of Charlton, Barnsley, Yeovil and Blackpool should yield points and apart from a trip to Nottingham Forest on the final day of the season it is hard to envisage Albion not taking at least a point from the trip to Huddersfield on Good Friday.

Top six-finish prices from BetVictor are Wigan 1/7, Reading 5/4, Nottingham Forest 9/4, Ipswich 3/1 and Brighton 3/1.

Wigan’s sensational run of form has seen them shorten for promotion and they are now the 5/2 co-third favourite with QPR and Derby, Burnley 1/16 to be playing Premier League football next season and 8/1 bar those five.

That leaves Brighton competing with Reading, Nottingham Forest and Ipswich for the sixth place; can they grind out some much needed results? They need a performance when travelling to South Yorkshire at the weekend for a crucial game with Barnsley.

The Tykes are 2/7 for the drop but have won their last two against Yeovil and Reading, respectively. Barnsley have lost their last two at Oakwell however and are 27/10, Brighton 23/20 and the draw 12/5 with BetVictor.

Leo Ulloa hasn’t scored in his last four, scoring just one in his last seven but there is hope that his shooting boots will resurface at Oakwell; he is 5/1 to score the opener and 13/8 to score anytime.

The Argentine is 5/2 to score in a Brighton win with the scorecast of Ulloa scoring first in a 2-1 Seagulls win further appealing at 33/1 with BetVictor and reversing the 2-1 defeat at the Amex earlier in the season.

BetVictor are paying six places on this weekend’s Grand National with Rebecca Curtis’ Teaforthree heading the market as the 8/1 favourite, bidding to go even closer than his third in the race last year.

The 10-year-old finished down the field in the Gold Cup but prior to that ran a stormer finishing second at Ascot with Curtis adamant that her horse will be cherry ripe for Aintree but he will have to see off old adversary Monbeg Dude (10/1) once more.

Two horses taking a dramatic drop in class have been popular with Long Run and Tidal Bay both punted into 12/1 and likely to go shorter still. Long Run jumped arguably better than ever when winning at Kelso last time out and jockey Sam Waley-Cohen has a good a record over the fences than any, placed in two of the last three renewals with Oscar Time.

For all the latest odds go to BetVictor.com

Be lucky.