The Championship kicks off this weekend and the tie of the round is undoubtedly Birmingham City v Sheffield United on Saturday lunchtime. Both of these sides are anticipated to be competing at the top end of the table and the Blues are favourites for the title with a season points spread of 75.5-77.5 at Sporting Index.The Blades are only marginally lower, with 71-73 and spread punters will be looking for fireworks in this opening game. Those who have a strong view on the supremacy market will be interested to learn that none of the last 10 meetings between the sides have been drawn. City hold the advantage with seven of those wins, but they have lost two of their past seven games at St Andrews against the Blades.

Buyers of total goals at around 2.6 will be pleased to hear that the last four games between these two have averaged exactly 4 goals per game. However, they should tread carefully as the last eight meetings at St Andrews between the two have seen 2 or fewer goals. Both of these sides sometimes have their disciplinary problems, but the beauty of sports spread betting means that punters can profit from the behaviour or misbehaviour of players. Two of the last three games between these two at Bramhall Lane have had low bookings make-ups of 20 and 30 (where you are awarded 10 points per yellow card and 25 points per red). However, the last two contests at St Andrews have seen a red card apiece which will be of interest to those buying the first bookings spread of the new season.

The FA Community Shield takes place at Wembley on Sunday and amazingly Man United v Portsmouth will be the first time a team from outside the current Big Four has taken part since Newcastle in 1996. Spread bettors who sell total goals will be concerned that three of the past four ‘shields’ have had 3 goals, whilst last year’s contest between United and Chelsea had 2. There may be some punters who like to bet on extra-time or penalty markets and since 1993, four games have been settled on penalties – all of them won by Man United. There will always be those looking to buy or sell player goal minutes and sellers will take great encouragement from no player scoring more than one goal in the past 15 Community or Charity Shields. In fact, the last player to register more than one goal was a certain Eric Cantona for Leeds in 1992, who netted a hat-trick against Liverpool in a 4-3 thriller.