The sports spread betting blog

Liverpool vs Aston Villa, Premier League, 24/08/09

Ever get the impression that you just have a little too much interest in a game? That’s how I was feeling as kick-off approached on Monday night for the match between
Liverpool and Aston Villa.

My interest was four-fold, seeing as:

1) I’d bought Aston Villa points at the start of the season (see article below)
2) I’d decided to BUY STEVEN GERRARD GOAL MINUTES AT 26 for this match so was cheering him on.
3) I support one of Liverpool’s title rivals (won’t say who) so was keen to see the Scousers fall to their second defeat of the season.
4) I was involved in a particularly competitive fantasy football competition and this match was crucial.

So not only was my interest excessive in the match, but it was also heavily conflicted, basically coming down to four variables - £££ (long-term), £££ (short-term), pride (long-term) and pride (short-term). It was evident that there was no chance in hell of everything going my way so it was a question of prioritising, compromising and cutting deals with myself in search of a vaguely acceptable end result.

In the battle of the £££s, money in the future is never as useful as money right now, so I would have happily sacrificed a decent result for Villa for a couple of late Gerrard screamers.

What I’ve loosely described as ‘pride’ is more difficult to quantify and mixes poorly with gambling at the best of times. Supporting a club – and I mean really supporting here, living and breathing results and undergoing violent mood swings dependent on the weekend’s events – is a labour of love, but laborious none the less. Winning and losing money off a set of football results can bring similar feelings of joy and despair, though these feel distinctly more hollow than the genuine feelings of fandom – or so I’d always told myself.

Your emotional success in mixing gambling and supporting probably depends on your ability to internally differentiate between the two: while many, myself included, would flatly refuse to bet against their own team in a match, I know of people who do this every week for what they describe as an ‘emotional hedge’. But how much does the cash you win offset the pain of a defeat? And how much money would you have to lose on a bet to entirely knock the shine off a win? I suspect the amount is less than some would care to admit.

Before we get too bogged down in hypothetical questions of emotion, the more eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that the fourth ‘interest’ listed above was fantasy football? Now surely a silly game, which is basically betting but without any material reward, can’t be a serious consideration here? Not as simple. The fantasy football in question is a head-to-head league played among an intensely competitive group of office colleagues. With two defeats out of two so far, another losing week was nearly unthinkable.

As it transpired, I had Liverpool’s left-back Emiliano Insua (pictured above) whereas my adversary was fielding Villa centre-back Curtis Davies. As we were tied on points, in effect it was a straight match-bet between Davies and Insua. With Liverpool playing at home and firm favourites, any home win would be enough to send me through.

So what was I actually cheering for? By this stage, I had absolutely no idea. I resolved to just sit back and let the football come to me. Liverpool started the brightly and Gerrard had a couple of excellent chances in the eighth minute to score. There is a theory that if you’ve bought a player’s goal minutes then you don’t want them to score early on but I’ve never really gone along with this. After all, even an eighth-minute goal is worth a few points and I refuse to believe that it means Gerrard has somehow ‘used up’ his allotted quota of goals for the game. However, seeing as Gerrard missed both times, this never became an issue. Indeed, it was Villa who took the lead through an OG from the hapless Lucas – great news for Villa points, but a disaster for Insua, who lost his valuable clean sheet bonus thanks to the incompetence of his team-mate.

Then, as the first half ebbed towards a close, Villa amazingly scored again – this time through, of all people, Curtis Davies, my fantasy football nemesis. With this week’s contest now almost certain to end in another defeat, I consoled myself in the thought that everything else was going swimmingly: Villa were set to win away at Liverpool, which was wonderful news for their season points. Liverpool in turn were looking precariously poised in the title race, just three games in, which was wonderful news for my football club. And if they were going to launch a comeback, who better to lead it than Steven Gerrard, captain marvel?

Ah yes, about that. Gerrard went close a few times in the second half, but not in the last 20 minutes, when PGM buyers are most handsomely rewarded. This was no-one’s fault but his own: just after Torres had scored to put Liverpool back in the game at 2-1, Gerrard launched into a mad, bad and dangerous tackle inside his own penalty area, upending Nigel Reo-Coker and conceding the penalty that would cost Liverpool the game.

At 3-1 with 15 minutes left, the comeback was officially over. Gerrard and his team-mates meandered through a tepid last 15 minutes, without coming close to scoring. Bad news then for buyers Gerrard goal minutes, which made up zero, and terrible news for the fantasy football, but the convincing Villa win was more than beneficial elsewhere. All in all, a confusing night’s work.

JW

Holland v England, international friendly - 12/8/09

If it is a cliché to suggest that post of England manager is a poisoned chalice, then it’s one that has stood the test of time. The first incumbent this century, Sven-Göran Ericsson had by most standards a broadly successful reign, consistently breezing through qualification and leading England to three consecutive quarter-finals. Regardless, the erudite Swede was forced out by a rabid, xenophobic press-pack for the heinous sin of supposedly lacking that English panacea: ‘passion’.

And so we replaced Sven for Steve, who apparently possessed this great intangible, only to decide that he lacked, well, practically everything else. The usual vitriol began to fly towards McClaren: he was out of his depth, tactically naïve, in thrall of his players, too conservative, not conservative enough. His teeth were too white.

Worst of all, he dared to put up an umbrella while getting drenched by a thunderstorm on a chilly November evening. As often is the case with England, negativity begat fear, which in turn begat underachievement; England produced a listless display at home to Croatia on said chilly November evening and went on to miss Euro 2008.

Despite the subsequent outbreak of hysteria, Euro 2008 managed to survive without England and was all the more enjoyable for it. But the good times couldn’t last for ever and soon England were back in action. We had a new manager, Fabio. Erudite and passionate, the perfect mix. World Cup qualifying began and a wave of optimism spread across the nation. We started winning matches again: 4-1, 5-1, 6-0! Take that Croatia, Kazakhstan and Andorra!

And so, with seven wins out of seven we sit dazzling atop World Cup Group 6, a once-proud nation now proud again. Everything is wonderful with Don Fabio at our helm: it’s sure going be a wrench getting rid of this one, he’s a keeper. And you know what? This could really be ‘our year’. No really, it could.

Ah yes, we’ve sure been here before. From glory to despair and back again. Build ‘em up and knock ‘em down – nobody does it better than the English. Make no mistake, we’re building ourselves up again right now. It’s not like we don’t even realise what we’re doing, it’s just that it’s so ingrained within English football that they’re powerless to stop it. Take these quotes from Frank Lampard last week: “I’m wary of falling into the trap where people ask if you can win it, you say you can, and then expectations rise”, he starts promisingly. “Of course we can win it, though”, he ends inevitably.

Well we can, yes, but so can everyone from Spain at the top of the betting (5/1) to Sudan right at the bottom (5000/1). It doesn’t mean that we actually will though, but if you believe the bookies – who, don’t forget, are nothing more than a reflection of the expected views of the punters – then England are 8/1 fourth-favourites for the World Cup. This is behind Spain, Brazil and Argentina (which in itself must have required an inordinate degree of restraint) but ahead of the likes of Germany, Italy and France – you know, countries that have actually won major trophies in the last 20 years.

England played Holland on Wednesday night in an international friendly, that most pointless of match. I BOUGHT SUPREMACY AT 0.3, getting with Holland, in my own miniscule attempt to prick the pomposity of the England hype machine. Holland went two-nil up and I was enjoying myself very much. Then England scored two and it started again. The excitement, the exuberance, the endless hype. I lost my bet, but when it comes to England, I lost my will a long time ago.

JW

Premier League Points Predictions 09/10 - 5/08/09

Love it or loathe it – and plenty of people do both – the Premier League is only 10 days away and now seems as good a time as ever to try and size up what lies in store. One of the most popular spread betting markets available is Season Points, where the firms try and predict the final league table before the season has even begun. It’s not an easy market to play, but the rewards can be substantial – if you’re right, naturally. Spreadex’s quotes can be found on their website and everyone will have their own ideas over who to sell or buy, but here were a few bets that I fancied myself:

1) BUY ASTON VILLA POINTS AT 56.5

The quote offered on Aston Villa this season is 55-56.5 so if, like me, you fancy them to perform decently again this season, buying their points seems a no-brainer. I really thought this would be higher: Villa were flying for two-thirds of last season and looked set for a Champions League spot ahead of Arsenal before a horrendous late collapse. This was commonly ascribed to their small squad size, and while this is still a problem, it has to be remembered that their season began last year in mid-July with the (now-defunct) Intertoto Cup.

This European campaign lasted until late-February when, already showing signs of struggling to compete on several fronts, they lost to a useful CSKA Moscow side and embarked on a winless streak of nine league games, earning only 11 points from their last 13 games. Despite this, they still ended up with a very respectable total of 62 and I see little reason why they can’t maintain that kind of level of performance this time around. The squad has been more-or-less kept intact, bar the expected loss of Gareth Barry, the sale of Zat Knight and the retirement of Martin Laursen – who missed around half of last season due to injury anyway.

In have come Stewart Downing (crocked until December) and Leeds starlet Fabian Delph. What’s more, the dynamic duo of Young and Agbonlahor – who were so pivotal to the Villa’s impressive start but faded away more than most after Christmas – should be refreshed after the summer break and all the stronger for their experience last season. As a last thought – since Martin O’Neill took over in 2006, Villa have scored 50, 60 and 62 points. I see little reason to anticipate any imminent decline from the Villans this year.

2) SELL MANCHESTER CITY POINTS AT 65.5

OK, this is a little more dangerous, I admit. Man City’s recent exploits in the transfer market have been well-documented and in theory, backing a team which contains Robinho, Adebayor, Tevez, Barry et al. to struggle seems to fly in the face of logic. The key to this bet though is the level at which you can sell: 65.5 points is an awful lot for a team to reach, given that they scored only 50 last year. Quite evidently this is a new Man City side, but until the signings are fully integrated within whatever formation Mark Hughes chooses to play (it’s looking like 2-2-6 at the moment with the amount of strikers he’s bought), it’s doubtful that the team will play to its full potential.

City’s current spending spree has been described as unprecedented within history of the English game, but the same was said about Chelsea before the 2003-2004 season, just after Roman Abromovich had taken over and handed Claudio Ranieri the keys to his treasure chest. The result was a 12-point improvement from the season before last – impressive, but it took a change of manager (to Jose Mourinho) and another season of heavy spending before Chelski FC was fully formed and won its first league title. With question marks still hovering over Mark Hughes’ ability to manage big names, and indeed over his long-term future as manager. I’m happy to take a chance and get short of City points for now, with a view to a potential close later in the season when things are a little less chaotic at Eastlands.

3) BUY BURNLEY POINTS AT 32

Middlesbrough scored 32 points last season and won 7 of their 38 games in the Premier League. Meanwhile, Burnley won 5 of their 8 games against Premier League opposition, even though they were playing in the Championship. They also achieved promotion, despite a marathon season that involved 12 cup ties and a successful Play-off campaign. Nevertheless, they are favourites across the board to finish at the foot of the pile in their first Premier League season and this is reflected in their points quote of 30.5-32.

Now let’s say that the bookies are right to dismiss their chances this season and they do indeed finish in the bottom three. In the last five years, the average number of points scored by a relegated side is 30.5, but this is skewed by two exceptionally bad teams: Derby County in ’07-08 who scored just 11 points, and Sunderland in ’05-06, who reached 15. If these are disregarded, the average rises to 33.1. So basically, providing that Burnley avoid the kind of catastrophic seasons that befell Derby and Sunderland – and their solid squad and previous results against Premier League sides suggest this is likely – then they are in for over 32 points even if they get relegated.

On top of this, there is a more than fair possibility (about 40% according to the bookmakers) that Burnley will stay up, in which case the sky’s the limit when it comes to their season points. Well, maybe not the sky – probably more like 50 – but it still looks like a buy with limited downside and decent potential.

So there we go – check back here at the end of the season when Man City are Champions, Burnley are the new Derby County and Villa have replaced Martin O’Neill with the highly-touted Dr Jozef Venglos. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

JW