I must confess that I was a little disappointed in the Hull City display last night. They had plenty of chances but never really looked like they would score. Its clear that the wows of 23 goals in 21 home games last season could again scupper any promotion bid. As for Blackpool I was pleased to see Ollie (Holloway) get his troops off to a good start, here is a manager full of passion and belief and plays football the right way. I feel they are a couple of players short of a promotion team in my view but with the skills of the management they could overcome that difficulty.
Today I will be placing my bet based on statistics, a few weeks ago I wrote a blog showing the trend for draws in league 2 for relegated teams. So today I will be following that trend and placing a Yankee on all 4 games ending in a draw.
For anyone not sure what a Yankee is I shall give a quick explanation.
A Yankee is made up of 11 bets, so a £1 yankee will cost you £11.
It involves betting on the different combination of games to form doubles, trebles and a 4 timer. The theory is that should one game go south you can still collect on the other 3 games should they deliver.
So
Double bets = 6 bets
Treble bets = 4 bets
4 Timer = 1
In the case of my games if all 4 games win I will collect £339
If I felt that the 4 games would win and I didn't need to split my money on multiple bets i could place £11 on the win. In this case it will return £1363.
As you can see there is a massive difference in the returns, however if I predict 1 game wrong I can still get a smaller return from my Yankee bet but the single £11 bet is dead in the water.
I will also have a bet on Reading to start off with a win at home
AFC Wimbledon V Bristol Rovers (23/10)
Swindon V Crewe (12/5)
Macclesfield Town V Dagenham and Redbridge (9/4 Bluesq)
Shrewsbury V Plymouth Argyle (12/5)
All games to Draw
Reading To Beat Millwall (5/6 Bluesq)
Showing posts with label season 2011/2012. Show all posts
Showing posts with label season 2011/2012. Show all posts
Saturday, 6 August 2011
Friday, 5 August 2011
Today is the start of the new English Champioship 2011-2012
Tonight sees the start of the English Championship where Hull City will face relegated Blackpool. Last season Blackpool started well in the Premiership and for a long time it looked like they might stay up. However a dreadful away record finally took its toll and they were relegated after 1 season back to the Championship. Hull City find themselves in the Championship for a second season after they flirted with the Premiership, so both these clubs have parachute payments from the Premier League however only Hull have been spending it.
Blackpool have not spent much money and have lost the likes of DJ Campbell and Charlie Adam, these losses are key to Blackpool and will probably result in Blackpool finishing mid table this term.
Reports are rife about Blackpool players not being motivated, this can only be a bad thing for the club and I expect this to be clearly seen tonight. Holloway will want a good performance but I cannot see it happening.
Hull have a great record over Blackpool at home and I can only see 1 result, that being a home win for Hull City. Hull can be backed at 6/5 with Bluesq and Bet365.
So I'm going 10pts on the home win.
Blackpool have not spent much money and have lost the likes of DJ Campbell and Charlie Adam, these losses are key to Blackpool and will probably result in Blackpool finishing mid table this term.
Reports are rife about Blackpool players not being motivated, this can only be a bad thing for the club and I expect this to be clearly seen tonight. Holloway will want a good performance but I cannot see it happening.
Hull have a great record over Blackpool at home and I can only see 1 result, that being a home win for Hull City. Hull can be backed at 6/5 with Bluesq and Bet365.
So I'm going 10pts on the home win.
Sunday, 31 July 2011
Countdown to the big kick off starts here
With less than 7 days to the opening round of English League football matches its time to focus on the opening fixtures to see if any matches are statistically a good thing to bet on.
For me, preseason friendlies don't offer much in the way of form, as managers swap players around, use different systems and generally use the games to increase the fitness of the staff. Therefore there is no real form to go on for the first couple of weeks of the season so instead I look to the previous performance of teams and gauge whether a certain pattern will continue.
In the English Championship we have Reading, the losing finalists in the play offs. Reading start off against Millwall at home and will be looking for a fast start to the season following their loss to Swansea at Wembley. The 2 sides have played 5 times at Reading in recent history with Reading winning every time. In the reverse fixture Reading have only lost once, so from 10 games 1 defeat for Reading.
Last season Reading were surprisingly turned over by Scunthorpe at home on the opening day, whereas Millwall got a flyer with a 0-3 win at Bristol City.
Looking at other losing play off finalists we see the following
The table shows us that only West Brom have lost on the opening day after losing the play off final in the championship. This is a reasonable form guide and suggests that these sides are able to keep the core of the team together from that defeat. We see a lot of draws in this sequence however given Readings fine form against Millwall and no worrying sequence for losing play off finalists I will be including Reading in my list for next Saturday.
For me, preseason friendlies don't offer much in the way of form, as managers swap players around, use different systems and generally use the games to increase the fitness of the staff. Therefore there is no real form to go on for the first couple of weeks of the season so instead I look to the previous performance of teams and gauge whether a certain pattern will continue.
In the English Championship we have Reading, the losing finalists in the play offs. Reading start off against Millwall at home and will be looking for a fast start to the season following their loss to Swansea at Wembley. The 2 sides have played 5 times at Reading in recent history with Reading winning every time. In the reverse fixture Reading have only lost once, so from 10 games 1 defeat for Reading.
Last season Reading were surprisingly turned over by Scunthorpe at home on the opening day, whereas Millwall got a flyer with a 0-3 win at Bristol City.
Looking at other losing play off finalists we see the following
| Year | Home Team | Away Team | Score |
| 2010 | Cardiff | Sheffield United(PL) | 1-1 |
| 2009 | Middlesborough | Sheffield United(PL) | 0-0 |
| 2008 | Blackpool | Bristol City(PL) | 0-1 |
| 2007 | Burnley | WBA(PL) | 2-1 |
| 2006 | Leeds(PL) | Norwich | 2-1 |
| 2005 | Watford | Preston(PL) | 1-2 |
| 2004 | Leicester | West Ham United(PL) | 0-0 |
| 2003 | Sheffield United (PL) | Gillingham | 0-0 |
| 2002 | Norwich City (PL) | Grimsby | 0-0 |
The table shows us that only West Brom have lost on the opening day after losing the play off final in the championship. This is a reasonable form guide and suggests that these sides are able to keep the core of the team together from that defeat. We see a lot of draws in this sequence however given Readings fine form against Millwall and no worrying sequence for losing play off finalists I will be including Reading in my list for next Saturday.
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Final Season Long Selections
I have now posted my selections for the coming season. The theory behind my selections are documented through the blog, however if you would like clarification on any of the selections let me know.
All of my prices come from Bluesq and Bet365. If you would like to set up an account and get some free bets for the season
click Here for Bluesq
click Here for Bet365
To see my selections click here
All of my prices come from Bluesq and Bet365. If you would like to set up an account and get some free bets for the season
click Here for Bluesq
click Here for Bet365
To see my selections click here
Saturday, 16 July 2011
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!
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!
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
How do teams promoted from League 2 get on in League 1
I'm almost at the end of my review of promoted and relegated teams performances and today is the turn of the promoted sides from League 2. To clarify, 4 teams get promoted rather than the 3 up to the championship and the premiership, this means we have more games to look for trends.
It seems that promoted teams do not fair very well when they start out on their League 1 adventure. Of the past 7 seasons we have seen 8 wins, 13 loses and 7 draws in the opening day fixtures. This is not a good stat for those new teams however after the opening day fixture these teams find out quickly how to play at this level.
In the last 4 seasons we have only seen 2 sides win on opening day, 2 seasons ago Gillingham won at home and Brentford won away. Last season we saw 3 loses and 1 draw. 2 of the loses were away, the draw was at home.
Interestingly however, Dagenham last season became the first playoff winning side to lose on opening day since Southend in 05-06. Indeed Dagenham and Southend are the only defeated sides winning the League 2 playoff in the 7 years reviewed, 3 sides have won and there have been 2 draws.
The play off winners this year were Stevenage and they will be at home to Exeter City. Exeter did well last season finishing in the top half and picked up some good wins along the way. Exeter are not particularly good starters away from home so this is a possibility for my opening selections.
Bury travel to Huddersfield. Huddersfield lost out in the play offs and are considered by the bookies to be one of the favorites for promotion. SO I cannot see Bury getting a win on opening day. Wycombe entertain relegated Scunthorpe see my blog to see how relegated teams get on! Given the trends I reckon this is likely to end in a draw. Finally Chesterfield will play Tranmere, Tranmere avoided relegation by 8 points which was fair enough and probably end in the bottom half next season as well. They did pick up 9 wins at home so have some ability there. Its a tough game to call so I won't give advice however the stats suggest Chesterfield won't win!
It seems that promoted teams do not fair very well when they start out on their League 1 adventure. Of the past 7 seasons we have seen 8 wins, 13 loses and 7 draws in the opening day fixtures. This is not a good stat for those new teams however after the opening day fixture these teams find out quickly how to play at this level.
In the last 4 seasons we have only seen 2 sides win on opening day, 2 seasons ago Gillingham won at home and Brentford won away. Last season we saw 3 loses and 1 draw. 2 of the loses were away, the draw was at home.
Interestingly however, Dagenham last season became the first playoff winning side to lose on opening day since Southend in 05-06. Indeed Dagenham and Southend are the only defeated sides winning the League 2 playoff in the 7 years reviewed, 3 sides have won and there have been 2 draws.
The play off winners this year were Stevenage and they will be at home to Exeter City. Exeter did well last season finishing in the top half and picked up some good wins along the way. Exeter are not particularly good starters away from home so this is a possibility for my opening selections.
Bury travel to Huddersfield. Huddersfield lost out in the play offs and are considered by the bookies to be one of the favorites for promotion. SO I cannot see Bury getting a win on opening day. Wycombe entertain relegated Scunthorpe see my blog to see how relegated teams get on! Given the trends I reckon this is likely to end in a draw. Finally Chesterfield will play Tranmere, Tranmere avoided relegation by 8 points which was fair enough and probably end in the bottom half next season as well. They did pick up 9 wins at home so have some ability there. Its a tough game to call so I won't give advice however the stats suggest Chesterfield won't win!
Sunday, 10 July 2011
How do promoted teams get on in the Championship
Having reviewed a lot of stats, it seems there are no consistent patterns that provide definate results. However there are some interesting trends that can hopefully be used to our advantage come match day.
I have looked at teams promoted to the Championship to see how they get on in their opening 2 fixtures. The past 7 seasons have been used which means 42 games are being analysed.
In total these teams have given us 14 wins, 12 defeats and 16 draws. This is quite interesting as we haven't seen draws coming out on top in any other specific analysis so far. If we look at the opening day fixtures for these sides we see 6 wins, 8 defeats and 7 draws. This is not particularly good form for the teams themselves however should act as a warning for ourselves. Last season Norwich and Leeds opened with home defeats whereas Millwall started with an away win.
The previous season we saw the reverse with Leicester winning at home and Peterborough and Scunthorpe started with away defeats.
If we ignore these 2 sets of results and the set from 05-06 we would see that draws were a regular sight on opening day, indeed 7 draws were see in the 12 games reviewed.
Teams playing at home on opening day have won twice, lost twice and drawn on 5 occasions.
Home form is important to us here as we can see that all 3 promoted sides this year are due to play at home.
Brighton will play Doncaster, Southampton will play Leeds and Peterborough will play Crystal Palace.
Brighton have played Doncaster twice in the last 10 seasons, so there isn't much form to go on, we have seen 1 home win and 1 away win.
Southampton have played Leeds on 5 occasions. Interestingly Southampton have won on 4 occasions, losing only once. However they have never played each other this early into a season.
Finally Peterborough have played Crystal Palace only once in 10 seasons and on that occasion the game ended in a draw, this game was in August in 2009.
There isn't much recent form naturally, as these are promoted teams there is definately no clear trend however I do find it interesting that there hasn't been a draw on opening day involving promoted teams for 2 seasons. We have also never see all 3 sides lose on opening day and we have not seen all 3 sides starting at home on the same day!
to see how teams relegated from the championship get on click here
I have looked at teams promoted to the Championship to see how they get on in their opening 2 fixtures. The past 7 seasons have been used which means 42 games are being analysed.
In total these teams have given us 14 wins, 12 defeats and 16 draws. This is quite interesting as we haven't seen draws coming out on top in any other specific analysis so far. If we look at the opening day fixtures for these sides we see 6 wins, 8 defeats and 7 draws. This is not particularly good form for the teams themselves however should act as a warning for ourselves. Last season Norwich and Leeds opened with home defeats whereas Millwall started with an away win.
The previous season we saw the reverse with Leicester winning at home and Peterborough and Scunthorpe started with away defeats.
If we ignore these 2 sets of results and the set from 05-06 we would see that draws were a regular sight on opening day, indeed 7 draws were see in the 12 games reviewed.
Teams playing at home on opening day have won twice, lost twice and drawn on 5 occasions.
Home form is important to us here as we can see that all 3 promoted sides this year are due to play at home.
Brighton will play Doncaster, Southampton will play Leeds and Peterborough will play Crystal Palace.
Brighton have played Doncaster twice in the last 10 seasons, so there isn't much form to go on, we have seen 1 home win and 1 away win.
Southampton have played Leeds on 5 occasions. Interestingly Southampton have won on 4 occasions, losing only once. However they have never played each other this early into a season.
Finally Peterborough have played Crystal Palace only once in 10 seasons and on that occasion the game ended in a draw, this game was in August in 2009.
There isn't much recent form naturally, as these are promoted teams there is definately no clear trend however I do find it interesting that there hasn't been a draw on opening day involving promoted teams for 2 seasons. We have also never see all 3 sides lose on opening day and we have not seen all 3 sides starting at home on the same day!
to see how teams relegated from the championship get on click here
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
How do relegated Championship teams start in League 1
In recent years the profile of a relegated team from the Championship has changed. It seemed to be that the relegated teams were either yoyo teams that were too good for League 1 but not good enough for the championship or teams fighting above their weight for a season or 2. However in recent times the championship teams being relegated have been ex Premiership teams that have fallen from grace, usually due to bad financial management at the club. Leicester, Leeds, Man City, Forest, Southampton, Charlton and Norwich all match this profile.
The data is taken from the past 7 seasons of League 1.
This season we saw Sheffield United, Preston and Scunthorpe relegated. Scunthorpe could be seen as the yoyo side whereas Sheffield United are ex Premiership and were in the playoffs for promotion recently and Preston generally were a top half side for many years.
The teams relegated in 09/10 (Plymouth, Peterborough and Sheffield Weds) all started with wins the following season. This was the first time all 3 relegated teams have started with a win. Interestingly 2 of them lost the second game and the other had a draw. Looking at the other teams relegated over the years there doesn't seem to be a particular trend or pattern. Leeds and Brighton both won their opening 2 games, the only 2 to achieve this is in the years I was reviewing.
We have see 14 wins, 14 defeats, 14 draws in the opening 2 fixtures for the past 7 years! So given this stat i don't think finding easy bets in League 1 on relegated teams is going to be possible!
However teams playing at home on opening day have only lost twice, the latest being Norwich who were beaten 7-1 at home by Colchester, but ended up winning the League that season!
Preston are the only team at home and indeed they are home to Colchester! Preston are clear favourites to win but if you fancy a repeat of the Norwich result Colchester are a nice price!
I will be doing a review of promoted teams to the championship next, hopefully that will give some better trends to follow.
The data is taken from the past 7 seasons of League 1.
This season we saw Sheffield United, Preston and Scunthorpe relegated. Scunthorpe could be seen as the yoyo side whereas Sheffield United are ex Premiership and were in the playoffs for promotion recently and Preston generally were a top half side for many years.
The teams relegated in 09/10 (Plymouth, Peterborough and Sheffield Weds) all started with wins the following season. This was the first time all 3 relegated teams have started with a win. Interestingly 2 of them lost the second game and the other had a draw. Looking at the other teams relegated over the years there doesn't seem to be a particular trend or pattern. Leeds and Brighton both won their opening 2 games, the only 2 to achieve this is in the years I was reviewing.
We have see 14 wins, 14 defeats, 14 draws in the opening 2 fixtures for the past 7 years! So given this stat i don't think finding easy bets in League 1 on relegated teams is going to be possible!
However teams playing at home on opening day have only lost twice, the latest being Norwich who were beaten 7-1 at home by Colchester, but ended up winning the League that season!
Preston are the only team at home and indeed they are home to Colchester! Preston are clear favourites to win but if you fancy a repeat of the Norwich result Colchester are a nice price!
I will be doing a review of promoted teams to the championship next, hopefully that will give some better trends to follow.
Thursday, 30 June 2011
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.
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.
Assessing the opening day performance of teams promoted to the English Premiership
The search for helpful statistics continues and today I have been analysing the past 7 seasons, looking at teams being promoted and relegated from the English premiership. My focus was on the first 2 fixtures played, to allow me to assess how teams start in a new League. Before looking at the numbers my impression was that teams coming up would start well as the players and staff would be on a high and fully motivated for life in a higher league, and those teams going down would struggle with life in a lower league where grounds are smaller, pay is smaller and a different style of football is played.
My findings showed that teams being promoted won only 8 of the 21 games played and of that 5 of those were won on the opening day, 5 draws and 11 defeats. We have to take into account that on occasions teams being promoted played each other and therefore these results just balanced themselves out. Last season we saw that only Blackpool won of the promoted sides in a 0-4 win at Wigan. Newcastle and WBA both lost away although they did play Manchester United and Chelsea!
Of teams playing at home on opening day, Wolves lost last season but we have to go back to 2005/06 to find a promoted team losing on opening day at home. That year Sunderland and Wigan both lost, we need to also be aware that Sunderland were also relegated in that season with the lowest points score ever seen on the Premiership of 15 points! There have been 10 home fixtures in the 21 fixtures looked at with 4 wins and 3 draws.
QPR are the only team at home on opening day and will play Bolton. Bolton have a poor away record on opening day, although for the past 5 seasons they have played at home on opening day. Their record is 3 wins 2 draws and 4 defeats on opening day in the past 9 seasons.
The current manager at QPR is Neil Warnock, when he brought Sheffield United up he started at home with a draw. Owen Coyle, the man at Bolton lost last season as Bolton manager and lost away when he brought Burnley up, making Mr Coyle a bad option on opening day!
QPR could be one to take a chance on during the first rounds of fixtures.
In my next blog I will be considering relegated teams in full and seeing if we can find a pattern and a option to go with QPR.
If you would like me to research a specific pattern please get in touch let me know.
My findings showed that teams being promoted won only 8 of the 21 games played and of that 5 of those were won on the opening day, 5 draws and 11 defeats. We have to take into account that on occasions teams being promoted played each other and therefore these results just balanced themselves out. Last season we saw that only Blackpool won of the promoted sides in a 0-4 win at Wigan. Newcastle and WBA both lost away although they did play Manchester United and Chelsea!
Of teams playing at home on opening day, Wolves lost last season but we have to go back to 2005/06 to find a promoted team losing on opening day at home. That year Sunderland and Wigan both lost, we need to also be aware that Sunderland were also relegated in that season with the lowest points score ever seen on the Premiership of 15 points! There have been 10 home fixtures in the 21 fixtures looked at with 4 wins and 3 draws.
QPR are the only team at home on opening day and will play Bolton. Bolton have a poor away record on opening day, although for the past 5 seasons they have played at home on opening day. Their record is 3 wins 2 draws and 4 defeats on opening day in the past 9 seasons.
The current manager at QPR is Neil Warnock, when he brought Sheffield United up he started at home with a draw. Owen Coyle, the man at Bolton lost last season as Bolton manager and lost away when he brought Burnley up, making Mr Coyle a bad option on opening day!
QPR could be one to take a chance on during the first rounds of fixtures.
In my next blog I will be considering relegated teams in full and seeing if we can find a pattern and a option to go with QPR.
If you would like me to research a specific pattern please get in touch let me know.
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Taking the promotion odds
I have now reviewed the leagues and picked out who I think will be winning the various titles. However I have also been looking at the odds for teams to be promoted rather than teams that would win the leagues. As a reminder my teams for titles are
Championship
Leicester and Birmingham
League 1
Preston and Scunthorpe
League 2
Bristol Rovers and Southend
I will be looking to place some trebles on these teams for getting promotion as well.
The prices for these teams are currently available on Bet365 as at todays date.
Birmingham 5/2
Leicester 15/8
Preston 2/1
Scunthorpe 9/2
Bristol Rovers 11/5
Southend 13/2
This market is open until the 6 August 2011. Make sure you get on before then!
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
Championship
Leicester and Birmingham
League 1
Preston and Scunthorpe
League 2
Bristol Rovers and Southend
I will be looking to place some trebles on these teams for getting promotion as well.
The prices for these teams are currently available on Bet365 as at todays date.
Birmingham 5/2
Leicester 15/8
Preston 2/1
Scunthorpe 9/2
Bristol Rovers 11/5
Southend 13/2
This market is open until the 6 August 2011. Make sure you get on before then!
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
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
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
Friday, 24 June 2011
Home Win Draw and Away Win Percentage Review
I have spent some time looking around the internet to see what systems are used by punters to try and give themselves an edge against the bookies. Using the stats available to me I have started to analyse % win ratios for the 4 English Leagues. As I always say this data only shows what did happen and not what is going to happen and therefore this should only ever be used as a guide when looking for that next winning bet.
If we look at the past 10 seasons as as whole for all leagues we see something quite interesting, and probably not too surprising to the masses.
We see that the % of home wins far outweighs the % of draws or away wins. Its always interesting to me to look at why this is the case, and to this day I don't fully understand it however its a fact - year on year there is always over 40% of games are won by the home side.
Here is the break down for each league for the past 10 seasons.
The Premier League consistently comes out on top with an even higher average for home wins. So the moral of this story is not to back too many away wins and draws as there aren't that many as a percentage! However if you do find one make sure you have backed it!
So what about days of the week? do we see a different pattern when we look at days of the week?
Here we can see the results as actual games rather than % - the trend follows for a Tuesday in the same vein as a Saturday, the difference is small enough to suggest there is no difference for a midweek game over a weekend game.
I read recently that someone placed 10 bets at the weekend, they selected 2 teams such as Manchester United and Celtic and then added a game to draw. They picked 10 different games to provide a chance of picking up some winning bets. You need approx 3 of the 10 teams to draw in any one week to make a small profit. We see from the chart above that its rare to see the number of draws to be over 30% for any one season so I don't think this tactic would work in the long term. However I was curious to know what return I might have got had i done this last season.
Rather than pick 2 teams I just picked Manchester United as they were the team with the most home wins and I only did the check for weeks where Manchester United were at home. My matches for the draw were all of League 2 - or at least any League 2 game occuring on the same weekend as Manchester United playing at home. What I found was that we had a good start. Infact in Manchester Uniteds 19 home wins, using this system would have paid out in profit on 6 occasions. There would have been 3 occasions where there was no bet and one one occasion no draws in the league corresponding to the home win. so 6 out of 16 is a 37% hit rate, which is slightly higher than our draw model however the net effect at the end of the season was a £117 loss. The reason for picking League 2 was because they had the most draws last season.
So although this plan looks like a good one, finding the teams to draw is not as easy as it looks, even if you take the view that a team has to draw at some point! Now should you get lucky and get 6 or 7 draws in a weekend then the profit is certainly there, but on statistics I don't think this is one to follow in the long term.
If we look at the past 10 seasons as as whole for all leagues we see something quite interesting, and probably not too surprising to the masses.
We see that the % of home wins far outweighs the % of draws or away wins. Its always interesting to me to look at why this is the case, and to this day I don't fully understand it however its a fact - year on year there is always over 40% of games are won by the home side.
Here is the break down for each league for the past 10 seasons.
So what about days of the week? do we see a different pattern when we look at days of the week?
Here we can see the results as actual games rather than % - the trend follows for a Tuesday in the same vein as a Saturday, the difference is small enough to suggest there is no difference for a midweek game over a weekend game.
I read recently that someone placed 10 bets at the weekend, they selected 2 teams such as Manchester United and Celtic and then added a game to draw. They picked 10 different games to provide a chance of picking up some winning bets. You need approx 3 of the 10 teams to draw in any one week to make a small profit. We see from the chart above that its rare to see the number of draws to be over 30% for any one season so I don't think this tactic would work in the long term. However I was curious to know what return I might have got had i done this last season.
Rather than pick 2 teams I just picked Manchester United as they were the team with the most home wins and I only did the check for weeks where Manchester United were at home. My matches for the draw were all of League 2 - or at least any League 2 game occuring on the same weekend as Manchester United playing at home. What I found was that we had a good start. Infact in Manchester Uniteds 19 home wins, using this system would have paid out in profit on 6 occasions. There would have been 3 occasions where there was no bet and one one occasion no draws in the league corresponding to the home win. so 6 out of 16 is a 37% hit rate, which is slightly higher than our draw model however the net effect at the end of the season was a £117 loss. The reason for picking League 2 was because they had the most draws last season.
So although this plan looks like a good one, finding the teams to draw is not as easy as it looks, even if you take the view that a team has to draw at some point! Now should you get lucky and get 6 or 7 draws in a weekend then the profit is certainly there, but on statistics I don't think this is one to follow in the long term.
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Lessons Learnt and Some Interesting Statistics
Whilst we are in the close season we have a good chance to analyse what has gone before us and we can start to make plans for our betting strategies for next season. Of course any statistics that have gone before us won't necessarily reoccur next season however they can act as a guide for us. Finding trends and finding ways to win is all important for increasing our bank balance through the season ahead.
Lets take the Goals Crazy (or Goals Galore) bet - here we need both teams to score to collect on the bet. Normally you will see a price of odds on for this up to evens and in some exceptional circumstances odds against. For arguments sake lets assume the average price is 4/5. So for a £10 stake you will collect £8 + your £10 stake each time this occurs. In the case of Blackpool at home last season this happened in 94.7% of games ie 18 of the 19 home games played by Blackpool. So you would have a profit of £144 had you placed the same bet each time Blackpool played at home. For West Brom this was 78.9% of the time (or 15 out of 19 games) again giving a healthy profit on the season. The best returns for the other Leagues for the past season ranked in the 70% arena so nothing near what Blackpool achieved. Indeed looking at the trending we see that it wasn't until April that Blackpool finally returned a game where both teams didn't score, by then the profit would be good and Blackpool could be forgiven for letting you down on the one occasion!
Another bet that was used quite a lot last season by myself and others commentating around me was for over and under 2.5 goals. There was a view that teams such as Crewe would produce games with over 2.5 goals. The reality however was very different, infact in their 46 games Crewes games only produced over 2.5 goals in 26 of the 46 games a return of 56.5%, Crewe did however manage 91 goals and conceded 56 which is on average above 2.5 however its actuals we need not averages.
When betting on over and under last season the team to follow was Peterborough, they managed over 2.5 goals on 22 out of 23 games which is quite a remarkable feat! Again if you assume a guide price of say 4/5 it gives you a profit around the £170 mark, that doubled with Blackpools goal crazy and all of a sudden we are looking at some nice returns from just 2 teams.
In the premiership we saw Manchester United return 18 wins out of 19, albeit Manchester United will have been very short for many of those fixtures so the returns would have been small, however to have a team to add to a treble to bump the returns up is never a bad thing to have in your pocket!
Looking back through the records its hard to find anything coming close to what Blackpool and Peterborough achieved last season so finding the right team to follow will be very hard next season.
As I find more interesting stats i will post there here for you as we move closer to the August 2011 kickoff.
As a foot note I hear that Porto are about to start their search for a new manager as Andre Villas-Boas has resigned and is currently in London talking to Chelsea. Once that move is completed I will do my review of the Premiership as all of the title contenders will by then have their managers in place. If Andre does take over at Stamford Bridge he will become the youngest manager in the Premier League at aged 33! Quite a remarkable move I think!
Lets take the Goals Crazy (or Goals Galore) bet - here we need both teams to score to collect on the bet. Normally you will see a price of odds on for this up to evens and in some exceptional circumstances odds against. For arguments sake lets assume the average price is 4/5. So for a £10 stake you will collect £8 + your £10 stake each time this occurs. In the case of Blackpool at home last season this happened in 94.7% of games ie 18 of the 19 home games played by Blackpool. So you would have a profit of £144 had you placed the same bet each time Blackpool played at home. For West Brom this was 78.9% of the time (or 15 out of 19 games) again giving a healthy profit on the season. The best returns for the other Leagues for the past season ranked in the 70% arena so nothing near what Blackpool achieved. Indeed looking at the trending we see that it wasn't until April that Blackpool finally returned a game where both teams didn't score, by then the profit would be good and Blackpool could be forgiven for letting you down on the one occasion!
Another bet that was used quite a lot last season by myself and others commentating around me was for over and under 2.5 goals. There was a view that teams such as Crewe would produce games with over 2.5 goals. The reality however was very different, infact in their 46 games Crewes games only produced over 2.5 goals in 26 of the 46 games a return of 56.5%, Crewe did however manage 91 goals and conceded 56 which is on average above 2.5 however its actuals we need not averages.
When betting on over and under last season the team to follow was Peterborough, they managed over 2.5 goals on 22 out of 23 games which is quite a remarkable feat! Again if you assume a guide price of say 4/5 it gives you a profit around the £170 mark, that doubled with Blackpools goal crazy and all of a sudden we are looking at some nice returns from just 2 teams.
In the premiership we saw Manchester United return 18 wins out of 19, albeit Manchester United will have been very short for many of those fixtures so the returns would have been small, however to have a team to add to a treble to bump the returns up is never a bad thing to have in your pocket!
Looking back through the records its hard to find anything coming close to what Blackpool and Peterborough achieved last season so finding the right team to follow will be very hard next season.
As I find more interesting stats i will post there here for you as we move closer to the August 2011 kickoff.
As a foot note I hear that Porto are about to start their search for a new manager as Andre Villas-Boas has resigned and is currently in London talking to Chelsea. Once that move is completed I will do my review of the Premiership as all of the title contenders will by then have their managers in place. If Andre does take over at Stamford Bridge he will become the youngest manager in the Premier League at aged 33! Quite a remarkable move I think!
Friday, 17 June 2011
English Football Fixture Lists 2011/2012 Released
So at last, it seems so long since we had any fixtures to look at! The English football calendar is now in front of us! The homework starts today as we look for those games where we can collect some money off the bookies!
I will be adding the fixtures into my stats database so that i can start analysing the first games as soon as possible. Clearly current form will pay no part of the early season games so I will be looking at previous seasons and early season trends.
Having reviewed league 1 and league 2 already I thought I would highlight those teams I have tipped to go well next term and quickly look at their early season fixtures.
In League 2 Bristol Rovers will start away at AFC Wimbledon - this is an interesting game as these teams could not have finished further apart last season. Bristol Rovers were relegated and Wimbledon promoted via the play offs! It will be an interesting contest and will show whether the promoted club has strengthened and whether Rovers can start on a high note after a poor season last term. The people who create the fixture lists have maybe been a little unkind serving up Wimbledon with 3 of the relegated clubs in their opening 3 fixtures!
My other team to watch in league 2 are Southend United, they start at home to Hereford who had a dreadful start to last seasons campaign. In the event Hereford finished comfortably in mid table. Southend did beat Hereford in March 4-0 so probably feel it should be a good start for them.
In League 1 my tips are Preston and Scunthorpe, both relegated from the championship last time around. Preston will play Colchester and Scunthorpe will play newly promoted Wycombe.
A more detailed look at the fixtures will come in good time for the new season, now the hard work begins!
To see the reviews for the leagues click on the links below
League 1
League 2
I will be adding the fixtures into my stats database so that i can start analysing the first games as soon as possible. Clearly current form will pay no part of the early season games so I will be looking at previous seasons and early season trends.
Having reviewed league 1 and league 2 already I thought I would highlight those teams I have tipped to go well next term and quickly look at their early season fixtures.
In League 2 Bristol Rovers will start away at AFC Wimbledon - this is an interesting game as these teams could not have finished further apart last season. Bristol Rovers were relegated and Wimbledon promoted via the play offs! It will be an interesting contest and will show whether the promoted club has strengthened and whether Rovers can start on a high note after a poor season last term. The people who create the fixture lists have maybe been a little unkind serving up Wimbledon with 3 of the relegated clubs in their opening 3 fixtures!
My other team to watch in league 2 are Southend United, they start at home to Hereford who had a dreadful start to last seasons campaign. In the event Hereford finished comfortably in mid table. Southend did beat Hereford in March 4-0 so probably feel it should be a good start for them.
In League 1 my tips are Preston and Scunthorpe, both relegated from the championship last time around. Preston will play Colchester and Scunthorpe will play newly promoted Wycombe.
A more detailed look at the fixtures will come in good time for the new season, now the hard work begins!
To see the reviews for the leagues click on the links below
League 1
League 2
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