Friday March 1st

Graeme McDowell opened with a solid 67 yesterday, three strokes ahead of both Tiger Woods and Rory McIIroy, no golf tournaments are won on Thursday, but he is now shorter in most betting lists than than the two pre tournament favourites and hopefully "our man" can build on that today and put himself in a strong position heading into the weekend.

Only Ligue 2 in this email, as already advised, there is a follow up at 17.00 UK time with news for the Saturday morning J-League matches and also a new long term selection.

Watford have a very important match at Wolverhampton Wanderers tonight, the hosts are battling for survival at the foot of the table and these are never easy games, at this stage of the season, but if they could win, it would put a lot of pressure on Hull City, their nearest challenger for second place in the Championship and who face a difficult match with Birmingham City tomorrow, with the Midlands club showing signs of improvement. Obviously, there is no need for us to look for further involvement in any of the Hornets remaining fixtures.

Ligue 2

Three previews, I am keen on them all, but there is one 1.75 unit selection and also a bet with a realistic chance of winning at odds of 130-1 !

Le Mans- Angers

We recently opposed Angers for their trip to Le Havre, ahead of which I wrote ...

We have done quite well with Le Havre this season and I strongly favour them this evening and the asian quote is a full quarter ball better than I made it. Angers played on Monday, which is a good start for us, with that always difficult quick turnaround, ahead of that match with Lens I wrote ...

They lost that 2-1, coach Stéphane Mouli, is still without central defender Jérémy Henin (12-0-0) and midfielder Diego Gomez (15-1-1), along with another centre back in Marc Zoro (11-1-0), right back Pierre Lemaire (5-1-0... he has started in five of Angers last seven starts, including all four wins in that sequence) and several very long term injuries,  a third centre back in Malik Couturier ( 9-1-0) was sent off with nine minutes remaining last week and is again suspended, which leaves them very short of options in the middle of the backline. New signing Tunisian Khaled Ayari, who plays behind the striker is set to make his debut.

They ended the match with ten men, trailed 2-1 late, but found  away to win 3-2, that says an awful lot about their battling spirit , but will surely have left them drained. They get Malik Couturier back from suspension, but Henin, Gomez, Zoro and Lemaire ( see above) all remain out and they continue to look very vunerable defensively.

They lost that 2-1, conceding a late winner, but again battled well, especially given that was their second game of the (long) midweek. They immediately bounced back with a 1-0 defeat of Gazelec and that says a lot about them, they are tough and will fight, but are a little short on class and tend to come up short against the better teams in Ligue 2, actually, they are a bit of a "flat track bully" with 11 of their 13 wins coming against teams outside the top 9 . One of those was a 4-0 defeat of Le Mans in the reverse fixture, with Claudiu Keserü (24-14-2) scoring all four goals. Doubtless he will be up for this and that the hosts will have tried to come up with a gameplan to stop the prolific Romanian striker. The visitors remain without Gomez and Lemaire( see above) and also right sided midfielder Rayan Frikeche (19-3-0), but Zoro, Fall ( suspended last week) and Couturier are back in the squad and overall they look a little stronger and definitely fresher, since we last discussed them. New signing Ayari and Doré are competing for the starting role alongside Keserü, the Tunisian got the nod last week, but was replaced after an hour, with Doré assisting for the winner and competition between the two can only be good for Angers.

Le Mans have found  a little form and have only lost one of their last six, but three of those were draws and they have more than a little luck in that sequence, both in terms of the teams they played ( two were really struggling) and also, what has happened on the pitch . They earned a vital 3-2 win at Niort last week, coming back from 2-0 down, all credit to them for that, but there was some "Keystone Kop" defending in that match and the hosts had two late "goals" disallowed there , "scored" after they were reduced to ten men, I have only seen these very brief highlights myself, but there looked little wrong with the first of those and no appeals from the defenders, again, all the luck went the way of Le Mans. The hosts like to play the long ball and Angers will not be as cavalier as Niort, especially if they get their nose in front this evening. Le Mans are without left back Jason Buaillon (18-0-5) and left winger Olivier Thomert (12-1-0). I like the visitors off level ball. 1.25 units Angers level ball 2.19 asian line/ Ibramarket.

Le Mans : Makaridze, Janot - Cuffaut, Koné, Kassaï, Omrani, Baby, Thomas, Zito, Zhang, Landel, Sido, Ekeng Ekeng, Mendes, Sylla, Cissé, Belfort.

Angers : Malicki, Letellier - Boyer, Couturier, Zoro, I.Diallo, Fall, Auriac, Diers, El Jadeyaoui, Manceau, Ravet, Ayari, Doré, Keserü, Socrier.

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Good Luck.