City’s recent burst of form has been noted by the nation’s bookies, who’ve moved the Tigers from favourites for relegation to, err, second favourites. 4/6 is the longest any of them are prepared to offer on Phil Brown’s resurgent charges tumbling Championshipwards – by contrast, Totesport are willing to quote 11/8 on us achieving a third successive season in the Premier League.

That’s still an improvement of sorts, however. City were as short as 1/3 to take a spill in the aftermath of the Burnley defeat. The shortest price belongs to Portsmouth, who now have that prohibitively skinny price themselves. Their situation is beginning to parallel West Brom’s last season, whereby they seemed unable to put together any kind of run to offer encouragement of an escape. It’s not worth tying your cash up on such a short price, but the omens are not good.

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It’s a brave man who gets involved in the match betting on this one. City have won four games since the last time Mark Hughes’ men recorded a victory in the Premier League, yet the home side are a virtually unbackable 3/10 (BlueSQ) to overcome Phil Brown’s resurgent Tigers. Then again…faced with one of the Premier League’s six best sides who are overdue a victory, would you really want your money on City, even with Stan James’ 12/1?

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Goals, goals, everywhere. All of a sudden, City are exciting again – a slight shame that the action is likely to occur at both ends of the pitch, but after much of the turgid stuff we’ve seen in 2009, at least we’re getting value for money.

Everything points to more goals during tomorrow’s visit of Everton. Nine goals have resulted from our last two home games, Everton have already scored four here this season, and in fifteen matches the two sides have never drawn 0-0. You can get evens on +2.5 goals tomorrow, not a bad bet given the aforementioned, and the case is strengthened further by factoring in City’s form this season – more than half of our league game this season have seen at least three goals.

If we continue the goals theme, then 5/6 is available with Skybet on both sides to score. Everton are 10/11 (Boylesports) to do what our last two visitors have done: score first. If you fancy Everton to take the lead but City to claim at least a point, William Hill offer 5/1 – that appeals, though Boyle’s offer 16/1 on the Tigers winning from behind for the more adventurous.

Now just watch it be a sterile 0-0 (10/1)…

It’s a mark of how far City’s stock has fallen of late that we start a home match with Stoke as the underdogs. No overt disrespect is meant to the visitors, whose feats continue to impress. However, it’s still quite an indictment of the Tigers that a team whose Premier League adventure started at the same time as ours now travel to the Circle as favourites.

Narrow ones, of course. City’s longest price is 19/10, Stoke’s is 8/5. Not much in it , and neither price really appeals. Who’d want to back a team with five wins from 24 home games at this level? Or a team with 3 away wins in 24 attempts? Both wretched records, and neither is forced to improve after Sunday’s game – you could do worse than take Skybet’s 12/5 on a draw that’d just about keep Phil Brown’s head above water, and would also be a useful point on the road for Tony Pulis…

The League table shows Saturday’s match to be between two of the three worst teams in the Premier League, as third-bottom City host rock-bottom Portsmouth. The visitors have lost eight of their nine game so far, yet can be backed as high as 13/8 (Boylesports) to rack up a ninth defeat at the weekend, while their only points so far came from a win at Wolves – 19/10 (Totesport) is on offer if you fancy them doubling their season’s total.

It’s hard to make a case for either side really. SkyBet currently offer the longest price on the draw at 12/5, which one suspects will attract plenty of interest. In April, the sides played out a turgid 0-0 draw at the Circle. A repeat would require both sides to keep only their second clean sheets of the season, but given the frayed nerves that’ll be in evidence, plus City’s painfully laboured attacking efforts on Monday, it looks a reasonable punt at 10/1 (SportingBet). Covering it with under 2.5 goals in the game (4/5, generally available) may not be a bad idea either.

With both sides already in relegation trouble, it’s interesting to look longer term too. Both sides are odds-on to go down (City 1/2, Portsmouth 8/13), while unsurprisingly the shortest odds to finish 20th are also reserved for these two sides: 7/4 being available on either. Oh, and the two managers involved, Messrs Brown and Hart, are also leading the “Sack Race”, joint 5/2 favourites to be the next Premier League manager to lose his job.

Cheery stuff, eh?

Once upon a time, news of a City fixture being shown on live television was a cause for despair, quickly followed by a hefty punt on whoever we’d be playing. Then along came Phils Parkinson and Brown, and now it’s another thing we take in our stride.

That said, our recent televised outings haven’t produced a clutch of happy outcomes. Assuming we don’t count the Asia Trophy (a contentious issue for we obsessive ground-tickers), it’s been a while since any of the Sky, ESPN or Setanta cameras broadcast images of Tiger success live to the nation. Fulham on Monday evening represents a reasonable opportunity to correct this.

Not that we can exactly count upon victory, for our opponents have a good team and a fine manager. The omens aren’t too bad though – Fulham provided our only double of last season, both secured with late goals. It’s interesting to seek inspiration from them. City are 2/1 (Skybet) to score the game’s last goal and 25/1 to win from behind (BlueSQ). Hmm.

Fulham’s mixed start to the season has seen them score just six goals in seven games, which means 4/1 (Paddy Power) on the Tigers keeping a first clean sheet on the road since, err, Fulham away in March may offer some value.

Much of the focus will be on Jimmy Bullard, who could make his first City start since his £5m transfer from Fulham. He may not start – but if he does, 18/1 can be found on him scoring first, 7/1 to score at any time or a rather optimistic 500/1 to score a hat-trick (Paddy Power)…

Wigan at home last season brought about the moment when smug pundits aplenty affected thoughtfulness by slowly scratching their chins and sadly intoning “yep, today’s the day Hull City got found out, can’t see them staying up from here”. A 5-0 home defeat was a chastening experience from which we ultimately recovered in remarkable style to prove them all wrong.

But they’re forecasting the worst again. We’ve just had another five-goal hammering, albeit against superior opposition, but can we expect a fightback from it this time around as impressive as the one last season? Hmm. August 2009 saw heady days, and even that clinical dismantling by the Latics didn’t puncture our spirits too much. On the other hand, the pasting at Liverpool was the latest in a series of heavy defeats that have seem gloom gather at the Circle – the mood now is very different.

It’s reflected in the bookies’ prices, too. Wigan start as marginal favourites with most, a best price of 8/5 being available (courtesy of City’s sponsors Totesport). The Tigers are offered as long as 15/8 (extrabet) to record a rare home victory. Little obvious value in either, though 8/5 on a team that’s just beaten Chelsea is more likely to find takers.

A repeat of last season’s drubbing would severely threaten Phil Brown’s position – 300/1 is on offer with Paddy Power for the pessimists, while a decent-looking 17/2 (extrabet again) can be found on a doughty 1-0 home win of the sort that keeps struggling teams afloat…

Lightning can strike twice, you know. Roy Sullivan is cited in the Guinness Book of Records as having been struck seven times by it, and survived them all. So, using his experiences as inspiration (and conveniently skipping over the fact he later committed suicide), let’s pretend that City’s 2-2 draw at Anfield and the circumstances behind it could actually occur again:

City to score: 6/5 (expekt.com)
City to score two or more: 15/2 (Skybet)
Liverpool and City to draw: 13/2 (various)
City to score first and not win: 8/1 (BlueSQ)
Liverpool 2-2 City: 50/1 (various)
Paul McShane to score: 33/1 (extrabet)
Paul McShane to score first: 80/1 (Paddy Power)
Paul McShane to score first and City to draw 2-2: 2100/1 (Bet365)

Ahem.

Birmingham aren’t a club we’ve faced too often in recent times. Two Championship meetings in 2006/07 (a win apiece), another two in whatever Division Three calls itself these days in 1994/95 (a single point for City) and also 1991/92 (again, one more point). That’s been it since the 1980s, so there’s not a great deal of recent evidence to go on with regards to calling Saturday’s game, though over time Birmingham have had the better of it.

Perhaps more instructive is a look at this season’s table, and that of last season too. Birmingham have scored two goals in five games this time around, whereas last season they were promoted with just 54 all season. It’s not hard to spot where any possible weakness in Alex McLeish’s men may lie – however, with just 37 conceded in 2008/09 and a credible four this season (contrast that with 12 already for City), one fancies they’ll be consistently hard to beat all season, but will need to rely on remaining tight throughout with goals for at such a premium.

Hard to imagine a goalfest at the Circle then. City’s newly weakened defence will be optimistic about avoiding another traumatic 90 minutes against lesser strikers, but there’s nothing to suggest things will be much better for the Tigers at the other end. It could be a tense, tight affair not too dissimilar to the victory over Bolton a few weeks ago. It also makes picking a winner fearfully difficult and few punters will be including this game on their weekend coupons. It’s hard not to be tempted by 9/1 on 0-0 (Betfair), if only because the winnings may get you through the final minutes…

I’ve long thought the exasperated exclamation “typical City” should actually be one word, condensed and unconventionally capitalised in order to highlight just what a powerful hold this mysterious yet never-absent force has exerted over us for more than a hundred years. TypicalCity – the immutable law that governs the Tigers, that decrees that if something simultaneously ludicrous and terrible can happen, it will; that if tragicomedy is even remotely possible, we’d better get ready for it.

It is with this in mind that we turn to the scorecast odds for Sunderland v City on Saturday – ordinarily best left alone as they’re simply too random to be given serious attention. But this time, they’re worth a look. Examining them with the above in mind we offer without further comment, beyond merely “wouldn’t this just be TypicalCity”, the following:

Michael Turner to score first and Sunderland to win 1-0: 130/1 (BlueSQ)