FA Cup – Round four winners
Rather than a prediction this is a glance back. A look if the ‘romance’ of the FA Cup is still alive.
At the start of the third round, premier league teams made up 93.69% of the market. They now make up 80% of the market, the romance of an outsider winning the cup is still alive it would seem.
However, top flight four teams met each other in round three so we will have to delete these for the purposes of what we are looking at. This deletion meant that the total book value of the remainder was 72.37%. We are now in round four and this percentage has increased to 80.27% a shift of 8% or so. If the book % increases between rounds in your selected group, this means it was sensible to back that group, this is why I deleted those other four. No point in backing a definite loser, of which there would have been two if we included those other two matches.
Basically, it didn’t make sense to lay any premier league teams, only back them to progress in aggregate. This is a fairly typically pattern for the FA Cup, especially in the earlier rounds. The only real hope for smaller clubs is if premier league teams knock each other out of contention and then a smaller club flukes a win. You have to go a looooooooong way back to find a season where a lower league team really had a chance. Millwall did well in 2003/4 thanks to a fortuitous route to the final, and in fact the chance of this increases in each round thanks to the random draw. But eventually they have to overcome much stronger opposition and the differential in strength at the top is wider than ever now. Best return to a level stake between round three and four was Leicester by the way.
While it appears to be a bit of a dream to see a lower league team reach later rounds, at least it’s more likely in the FA Cup. If you play in a seeded tournament, like the Tennis grand slams, the competition is unfairly set up to favour the strongest.
So there is a little romance left in the FA Cup, even if it’s only when you see the balls come out of the bag during the draw.
You only kiss your missis on the lips?
Category: Football trading strategies
