Category: Football trading strategies
Red vs. Blue
I recently watched an episode of Horizon on BBC iPlayer. These documentaries are right up my street and I love exploring some of the more esoteric views of things. This particular episode was all about colour and how the brain interprets colour. It was really fascinating as it highlighted that a lot of the colour you see is “interpreted” by the brain and not actually “real”.
One element of this was looking at the effect of red and blue and …
What does value look like?
I’ll often make suggestions around value. In my football ratings I point to matches that will have above or below value median results. What I am trying to say is this looks value, that is value, this isn’t. But what does value look like?
One thing it is not, is a tip. I’ll liberally scatter the words ‘on average’ into many posts as that is what value looks like. All sports and most events show a great deal of variability …
Europa league ratings
Don’t forget to use Soccer Mystic to have a good look at each match yourself!
In hindsight I’ve been too optimistic this week in the champions league. What I have learnt so far is that some teams have not settled into European competition yet and others have been a bit cautious; this is surprising in the group stages. Biggest surprise was to see Inter lose last night!
I like the Europa league as you get two bites at the cherry …
Champions league ratings
Nice result on the Barcelona match last night! Our top four goal ranks produced three over 2.5 goal matches and the bottom four three under 2.5 goal matches. I would have estimated four matches would be likely to reach >2.5 but there were only three. I would lean on the side of lots more goals than normal this evening and therefore overs are in-play and unders at risk this evening.
Because this evening’s matches should produce more goals I would …
Champions league ratings
An interesting bunch of matches tonight and I reckon they will throw up, on average, around 21/22 goals as a group. Don’t forget to fire up Soccer Mystic for a good look at these matches.
I’d rank most to least goals as: –
Barcelona vs. AC Milan
Porto vs. Shakhtar
Genk vs. Valencia
Chelsea vs. Leverkusen
Dortmund vs. Arsenal
Plzen vs. BATE Borisov
APOEL vs. Zenit St Petersburg
Olympiakos vs. Marseille
I’m intrigued by the Barcelona and Dortmund match. Are …
Who scores first in a football match?
When trading football, whatever strategy you use, it tends to gravitate to the key question, who scores first? (You could add when to that as well!)
I first asked this question in the early 80’s and worked out how to calculte this and most likely time for a goal. I recently revisited some old material and transplated it to today’s markets so see if much had changed. Not a great deal has changed to be honest and the stats are …
Three day game
Andy Murray finally put to bed his forth round match at the US open. But the fact it took three days highlights one of the potential issues with trading Tennis. Do you take a long term or short term position, do you hold a position or close it out at defined points?
There are two sides to the coin. The fact an event has no definitive end point vastly increases the volatility and the chance of getting two prices matched …
Fooled by randomness
Acknowledging the angle offered by Nicolas Taleb, where he uses this phrase to write an entire book based on the fact the odd things happen more than they academically should, I would like to point out the same can happen in a football match.
Often I see people claiming to have found some new system for trading football. You know the sort, hold a chicken in your hand, put your head out the window and place a back bet …
Back the draw
I’m going to put up some information on Saturday’s about football / soccer. Some of it may seem contradictory for some of you and some logical, but it’s all based on years worth of research and application in the market.
For starters: –
If you backed the draw, pretty much at random, last weekend; you would have have netted a cool profit. I know, because I did exactly that and suffered a 60% thumping as a result! I was doing …
Champions league qualifiers
An intruiging bunch of matches this evening. Several are priced for a great deal of uncertainty and that can create some good opportunities. I reckon we should be in for another 13/14 goals in the matches this evening. The matches are much more complex this evening, so after my tip last night, I’ll duck a tip this evening!
Arsenal can win in Udinese but it’s not going to be straight forward. I’ll be monitoring the first half and making a …
Champions league qualifiers
I reckon there will be around 14/15 goals this evening. The least number of goals this evening is likely to be in the match between APOEL & Wisla Krakow.
EBore & the sack race
The York EBOR moved this year to a Saturday and as a consequence it killed it from a trading perspective. Chester races were only five minutes in front of York and Chester did it’s best to ruin York all day saving the best for the feature race by going off only 38 seconds before the big race at York. Racing UK got in about five seconds of coverage and most of that was covered with a graphic of the odds. …
Hitting the panic button
The football season is only a few matches old and yet some fans are hitting the panic button already. Hot favourites for the championship Leicester City have already lost two games at home. Not the form of a championship winning team! Teams at the top of the table rarely lose home games, let alone two in a row. Could Sven be on his way out again?
I recently did some work on managerial changes and their impact on teams. On …
That thin line…
Early season football is the most interesting time of the year for me.
Some teams play well but lose, some play poorly but win and in the early season that gives a lift or shock to the team. Teams can easily build or lose momentum early in the season so its key to see how things are playing out. Short term momentum is critical and can lead to early season over performance but to keep it going over the whole …
The apprentice
I saw this article in last weekend’s financial times about Ryan Clarke and thought it was a really nice piece. Outside of the elite clubs it was a really nice story of somebody who has worked hard to get through the system from the bottom up. It gives you a good perspective of the difference between the elite clubs how football used to be. Worth a read…
It’s all kicking off!
Yes the premier league is back. Twenty teams, OK maybe four, well maybe three battle it out for the greatest honour in football…. Who will sack their manager first!
As I have mentioned in previous posts the market tends to inefficient at the start of the season. I looked back over the two months at the start of last season to see what happened last year.
The first thing to note is that the market got the number of goals …
Pity City
That was an intruiguing and exciting start to the the elite football season. This charity shiled final highlights where a lot of people go wrong in trading football matches. At half time a 2-0 lead flattered city according to the stats and Man Utd were still in it. Add in their propensity to score late goals and a back on Man United or the draw screamed value.
Unfortunatley I was not in a position to trade on Sunday, but got …
City or United?
Tricky, neutral ground, key players out, non-descript match, revenge for an FA Cup exit. Many factors in play.
I did a cut of data this morning against similar looking matches. I say similar because I analyse matches on a much deeper level than just look at odds and other top line levels or form. I open up the match and examine what the market is discounting on a number of levels and then recompile it. The neutral aspect of this …
Kick off
The English football season kicked off in earnest last night with Blackpool nudging a 1-0 win against Hull. Today league football gets underway properly and the hopes and aspirations of many will re-ignite across the nation. How appropriate that the financial markets are crashing under the weight of false hopes and huge amounts of debt just as the football season starts up! If you are looking for excess then there is plenty to find on and off the football field, …
Betfair sponsor Tuerkiyemspor
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Football is back (almost)
Scottish league football restarts today and it’s a useful reminder that at the start of season it’s easier to find value than at any other time of the year, bar the relegation dogfight perhaps.
It’s often difficult to see how transfers and all the other summer shenanigans will play out, but that can show itself in some of the earlier matches. Keep an eye open at the start of the season for a few fast starters. Any one of the …
£174m
The Deloitte football report is out and makes continued interesting reading. The current austerity in the western world doesn’t seem to have affected football. Their finances are as bad as ever but the players get paid more in a week than a group of the fans could reasonably expected to earn in a year. The clamour for ‘talent’ continues unabated.
There are some very interesting bits in the report. Manchester United spent 46% of its revenue on pay, but rivals …
A bit of a messicre!
Fairly early on last night, apart form the opening exchanges, you could see this match wasn’t going Man Utd’s way last night. The stats said it all. Possession was heavily skewed to Barca and by the end of the match Barca had 13 shots on target to Man Utd’s 1! Over 2.5 goals looked almost certain by half time, as did the Barca win. Barcelona really cemented their status as best club in Europe last night and probably the world.…
Champions League
Everybody else will be posting about it so I thought I would add my two penneth worth.
An intriguing clash, for once I think I will watch this than trade it.
A neutral venue but Man Utd will practically be at home, so you would have to favour Barca but discount some of the neutrality. I think this is the weakest Man Utd team for a while. Other teams really should have put in a stronger challenge for the premier …
Any two from five
Calculating combinations was the first place I started when I went on this long journey from a very young age. The intention back then was to win the football pools and combinations were an important part of spreading risk around my selections. Today, any two from five teams could be relegated and that means that they are ten different ways for this to happen, see the following ‘any two from five’ list. You would list the teams in ascending order …
How to play the play offs
I was asked for an opinion recently on the championship play offs. I tipped a Reading vs Swansea final with Reading likely to edge it. So far so good, as both Swansea and Reading are through, so how did I get it right?
It’s quite simple really, “Form” is the answer. When you look at play off success over the years then form stands out as the key determinate. Form teams do well in the play offs on average and …
FA CUP final
Is it just me or does the FA Cup feel like it’s losing is significance? Maybe it’s the dominance by big teams, maybe it’s the fact that this season the premiership and the champions league have pushed it around a little? Anyhow that’s not to detract too much from this famous competition. I am sure either supporters will be rightly proud if their team pull of a win.
The market is pricing in 2.50 goals with an advantage of 0.50 …
Match of the season
A tantalising match this afternoon between Man Utd and Chelsea and the market is being cautious by pricing up Man Utd at 2.34 for the win. I would have priced Chelsea near 4.00 for a win here, but with so much at stake; its probably right for the price to be a bit shorter. The market is priced for 2.50 goals with 1.30 going to Man Utd.
Home advantage is historically 0.40 goals so if you take that out, the …
Busy day
Looking forward to a busy day today.
Promotion and relegation battles will be settled on the football pitches today, that always throws up opportunities. There is nothing like career death to focus the mind of a highly paid footballer. I’m looking for an outside chance today. I’ll probably spread around my options to even things out. Did you know that Bet Angel can monitor and fire in bets across multiple markets almost simultaneously? This is ideal for football where matches …
May the 4th be with you
Hmm, not sure Ferguson is making the right decision to rest players ahead of tonight’s Champions league semi final. OK a two goal lead should be plenty but a goal for Schalke could really put the cat amongst the pigeons. I guess he will bench key players and bring them on if it merits it?
I had a quick look on the DB and hunted for Man Utd matches at home priced between 1.50-1.60. It threw up five recent matches. …
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