Ah, the start of the new season! Optimism reigns supreme, with everything to play for. This weekend sees the start of the German Bundesliga and the English Premier League and although there has been little movement in the Premiership futures market, the 'Bayern to Win' line got hammered down to 1.54 by mostly public money before it received any resistance. Looking at specific games for this weekend, here are the hot ones according to the players.

Football betting: English Premier League, Bundesliga kickoff. Bet online at Pinnacle Sports book

Online betting: English Premier League

Aston Villa vs. LiverpoolThis game opened at -1/4 for Liverpool back in June, but it wasn't until this week that the handicap finally switched to 1/2 a goal. This means there was probably a lot of value in the early lines (and also that punters now approve of Benitez's ÂP40m summer shopping spree). Since the move to a half, we've seen mostly two-sided action with many of our larger Asian punters backing Villa, which pushed the Reds' side of this line up to 2.09 at one point. The Asian handicap is now -½ 2.05 on Liverpool, though you have to balance the Scousers' clearly superior squad against the fact that Martin O'Neill's men lost just 4 games at home last season, and the Pool scored fewer away goals than Fulham and Wigan (18).

Arsenal vs. FulhamThe Gunners' line opened at -1½ 2.04 at home, but bettors took that number and ran through any resistance in July, finally prompting the move to -1¼. That said, the new handicap sparked a ton of Arsenal action which has continued throughout the week. By midweek, the Gunners were at 1.90 and it will be interesting to see where the line settles by kick-off on Sunday.

Totals trading on this game has been almost exclusively on the over.

Manchester United vs. ReadingUnited opened this game at -1½ 1.88, which sparked some early Reading action. Then late July, witnessed heavy trading on United with maximum limit bets pushing the line all the way down to 1.72. It has settled back slightly to 1.77, but with a 2:1 bet count as well as continued sharp action on Man U, we would expect the price to keep dropping, even though in four meetings last season United failed to cover the -1½ handicap.

Bet online here.

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