Pulis: The Denier of Sunderland Goals

We’ve discussed several times before how the under 1.5 goal market rarely shifts its prices dramatically - but at the Stadium of Light today, it really should.

WilliamHill lead the way by offering 2/1 that there will be fewer than two goals in the match and a quick check of recent history shows how good this value looks.

The three fixtures between Sunderland and West Brom since Tony Pulis arrived at the Hawthorns have ended 0-0, 1-0 (to WBA) and 0-0 again.

If you go back a little further then you’ll see that Pulis’s Stoke also drew 0-0 twice with the Black Cats between 2010 and 2012.

Four relatively recent goalless games between Sunderland and Pulis sides is well above the average, and no coincidence. This is how the Baggies’ boss approaches many away fixtures and the Mackems have rarely had the tools to breakthrough in recent seasons.

That looks the case again on Saturday and we can almost feel like we’re giving ourselves a margin of error by still winning if there is one goal either way.