The start of life in English League 2

When teams get relegated to the 4th tier of English football they find themselves one step away from the dreaded Conference League! The Conference League is "dreaded" because it is now overflowing with professional League teams all intent on getting out of it and back into League 2. So when a team is relegated from League 1 into League 2 I would have thought every effort would be made to get off to a fast start to retain the League status of the club. Teams playing in League 1 the previous season should in theory be stronger than many of the League 2 conterparts however the results of the opening fixtures do nothing to support this theory!

Looking at the past 7 seasons we see that the win % of teams relegated the previous season is not very good! Indeed taking the opening 2 fixtures for all of the teams relegated we see that in 27 of the fixtures we saw a draw. I find this an incredible stat as we saw 14 wins and 15 loses. So almost 50% of the opening 2 games played by relegated teams in League 2 end in a draw!

If we look at the opening day fixtures alone we see 53% of the games ended in a draw - this represents 15 games, we saw 8 wins and 5 loses inthe same selection of games.

In the 2007/08 season all 4 teams drew on the opening day. Since then we have seen a minimum of 2 games drawn on opening day with 3 games being drawn last season. Please note that some of the relegated teams played each other which slightly skews the stats.

Looking at the fixtures for the relegated teams.
Wimbledon V Bristol Rovers
Swindon V Crewe
Shrewsbury V Plymouth
Macclesfield V Dagenham & Redbridge

Its not out of the question that these 4 games could end in draws. I am tempted to do some research on these games to look for other factors and then possibly place some combination bets on draws occuring here in the attempt to pick up some early winnings at the start of the new football season.

I would need 2 results to come in to cover my bet and 3 or more would give me a healthy profit on the opening day.

I will post my research on these 4 specific games once I have completed it!

Opening fixtures performance for teams relegated to the championship

Teams being relegated from the Premiership perform much better after being relegated in their opening 2 fixtures than the teams that were promoted. Over the 7 seasons analysed 16 games resulted in sides winning 1 of their opening 2 fixtures, with 7 occurring in the opening games. In total relegated teams won 16, drew 14 and lost 12 of the opening 2 fixtures.

In the opening games we see that there were 7 wins, 9 draws and 5 defeats. Last season only Portsmouth lost, a team that was ravaged in debt and short of playing staff, both Hull and Burnley started with home wins. In the season before all 3 teams (Newcastle, Middlesborough and WBA) all drew on opening day.

In 15 games played by relegated teams at home on opening day only 2 teams have lost, 7 have drawn and 6 have won.

Only 6 games have therefore been played away from home by relegated sides so there is little form to go on, we see 3 defeats, 2 draws and only Watford in 2007/08 have won away on opening day.

This season we see West Ham playing at home to Cardiff. Cardiff have not started away from home for a number of seasons but history then shows 1 away win, 1 away defeat and 1 away draw meaning this is hard to predict. Equally, there are not definate patterns for Hull Vs Blackpool or Derby Vs Birmingham.

Its worth noting however that only 3 teams in the past 3 seasons (so 9 teams) have failed to win one of their opening 2 fixtures, indeed all teams relegated that drew in that period on the opening day went on to win their second fixture.

I will probably steer clear of the relegated teams on opening day and see if I can pick up on the second round of games once the results from week one are known.

Early Review Of The Premiership for 2011/2012

Now that the management situation has been sorted out at the top of the Premiership we can look at the chances for the top sides for the coming season. Once again Chelsea disposed of a manager for not winning the Champions League and have employed a relative unknown manager from Portugal (is history repeating itself). Andre Villas-Boas takes over at Stamford Bridge after securing the Portugese Super Cup, The League and the Europa League with Porto last term. Mr Villas-Boas becomes the current youngest manager in the Premier League and has a huge job on his hands. He will not have time to settle in, he will be required to win silverware immediately. This is not unusual for Chelsea managers in recent times, however now Chelsea have to compete with Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham and Manchester City making the job even harder than it once was.
Jose Mourinho managed to win the League in his first season, as did Ancelloti, however the other Chelsea managers have all failed.
Since 1992 Manchester United have won 12 championships and only once failed to win at least back to back championships. As they won the League last season the statistics suggest that they could again produce back to back wins. Last season was not see as the perfect season for Manchester United however they won the League by 9 points and got to the Champions League final - not bad for a poor side!
Arsenal once again flattered to deceive and their season collapsed once they lost the Carling Cup Final. For Arsenal to be challengers again they need to spend some money and spend real money on a number of top class players rather than youngsters that can be developed, ultimately get fed up and move on to win silverware elsewhere.

The top clubs have been relatively quiet in the transfer market so far, its been more about who isn't for sale rather than who is on the move. Spurs have rejected speak of Modric leaving, Arsenal the same with Fabregas and Man city insist Tevez is staying. Time will tell whether these players remain at their respective clubs, after Andre Villas-Boas siad in May he and all of his players would be staying at Porto! For Chelseas sake lets hope his is better at football management than seeing into the future!

Liverpool have been spending money buying Jordan Henderson for £16M from Sunderland. I'm still amazed at how much footballers cost! If Henderson is £16M what doe sthat make Fabregas or Modric if measured directly?

Manchester United have captured the signing of long term target Ashley Young and Phil Jones again both players signing for around the £16M mark. I will be watching with interest whether a new goalkeeper is bought at Old Trafford and if so who it is to replace the retiring van der Sar. The retirement of Scholes should not be too much of an inconvenience as he rarely started games in any case. A bigger loss will be Hargreaves as he never delivered after his transfer from Munich.

I expect the Premiership to become a 2 horse race between the Manchester clubs. They have the playing staff and the money to force their way to the top and City could run United close. I will reflect on this in August once the signings are pretty much done but I take Manchester United to finish just ahead of City as was the case this past season. Currently Manchester United are a 7/4 shot and City 3/1.

To see the review of the Championship, League 1 or League 2 click on the links below
To see the reviews for the leagues click on the links below
League 1
League 2
English Championship

The end of the football January transfer window 2011

The debate will go on and on, should we have a transfer window in January? Who benefits from such a window and ultimately what does it achieve?

For me, the window showed how out of touch football clubs are with the rest of the world. There seems to be so much money sloshing around, you can argue whether its wasted money or not!

At the moment Torres handed in a transfer request at Liverpool, my immediate thought was why did he wait until the last hours of the transfer window? If he was unhappy why didn’t he say something at the beginning of the window? Fans paid good money for Torres shirts and some unfortunate ones probably bough them in January, is that fair? I appreciate players have careers to think about but surely they have a responsibility to their fan base as well!

Is Torres worth £50 million? Probably not but it seems to be a case of certain billionaires showing other billionaires that they still have a big wallet!

So who were the winners in this round of transfers? Firstly lets consider Darren Bent, 3^rd highest goal scorer in the premiership over the last 5 years and sold for a what is now considered a bargain at £18 million. That seems like great business and has scored for Aston Villa already. He has experience and has shown he can score against the big boys.

Next we have Torres, £50 million to Chelsea, has been out of form for a good season now and prone to injury, wasn’t fit in the World Cup and it showed and hasn’t fired for Liverpool, but still considered the best out there.

Then we have Liverpool, the club with financial pressure, a striker that wants out, so they sell for £50 million and buy a striker for £35 million that has very little premier league experience, even less international experience and has outside issues with the courts. I think Liverpool did the right thing in selling Torres but to spend so much on someone that might or might not make it at top level seems slightly risky – other players have done well in the Championship and not stepped up to the Premiership, for me the second season for a striker is important, being unknown for a season is one thing but the second time around coaches will have analysed the player and worked out the strengths and weaknesses and will use that to try and stamp out the presence of a player. The best players still succeed but many fail.

And finally we have Newcastle, when Alan Pardew arrived he stated Carroll was discussed before his appointment and would not be sold. In the transfer window again we were told day after day by Pardew that Carroll was not for sale at any price, and in the end the Geordie fans were again sold down the river by Mike Ashley. Mr Ashley is probably smiling as he counts his cash but unfortunately Pardew can’t play a bag of cash up front at the weekend! So Chelsea have a new player, Liverpool sell and sign a new player and Newcastle have cash.  Although Newcastle have cash and probably got way above the true value of Carroll I fear that they will come out of this in the worst position. They always seem to get themselves sorted and make some progress then shoot themselves in the foot. They could have sold Carroll in the summer and found a replacement, but surely if the powers that be were always going to sell Carroll if the price was right why hadn’t a replacement been lined up? Why weren’t these so clever business people thinking ahead and planning for this exact eventuality – Liverpool did, maybe thats the King Kenny influence which they so badly needed!

Last night proved an interesting night with lots of fixtures up and down the land, my Yankee returned 3 results, the one i missed was Tranmere Vs Rochdale where I had gone for Rochdale, Tranmere scored in the 4^th minute and Rochdale equalised in the 95^th minute! I wonder what happened in between! So i returned a small profit which brings some welcome relief after a run of bad weeks.

I will post my fixture selections later in the week.