Saturday Column – The Footy and The Horses
We start the weekend, with a look into the work that goes on behind the scenes, here at Football HQ. In reality, we all work remotely but we have a central “hub” that we all stay connected to, talk regularly, bounce ideas around and more importantly come up with our betting strategies.
This very blog post will become the actual Saturday column, but we thought it would be interesting to briefly publish the meeting we've had today (Friday) and share our insights before they're published.
It's obviously a daily occurrence, that we all study the stats, media and trends for our chosen niches and today was no different. Getting geared up for the weekend, however, when any sport is at its most busiest, is one of the most important jobs for a Friday.
Patrick goes about looking at his obscure leagues, Eddie looks at all of the horse racing and Jon studies his preferred football leagues and between us, we come up with the best bets/trades for the weekend. We also have guys in the background looking at all of the results, bootstrapping data and double-checking every piece of data that's been input, is correct. It's a full-time job!
So, here's a bit of input from today's meeting and then Eddie's job is to condense the best of it and publish the findings for Saturday morning's email…
Patrick –
“It’s the first day of the Premier League as everyone keenly anticipates a season wondering who will finish second behind Manchester City. Liverpool are the obvious candidates but will a failure to improve an admittedly excellent squad cost Jurgen Klopp? In any case, going by the history of Premier League opening days, Manchester United rank #1 with 2.15 points per game in the 27 years since Sky invented football!
This conversation continued and we look forward to further insights, from Patrick, tomorrow…
Watch this space 😉
Eddie –
“Good luck with the football, mate. I might take you up on one of those bets. What do you reckon to a monkey on the home team?”
Patrick –
“Wait for the morning mate and I'll update you after the team updates have been announced.”
Eddie –
“Okay, cool, here's my stats for the horse racing. Take a look and I'll update you with market news, in the morning. Suffice to say, as long as the market agrees, I'll be following these trainers tomorrow…”
XXX Trainer to follow!!
Jon –
Cheers guys, I can see an edge in all of that. I'll use it for my trading. Being in a different time zone means I might be ahead of you two but I'll let you know what prices I get and any “shifty price” movements I come across.
Conclusion –
As you can see, we like to share our info, specialise in our niches and spread the wealth! Let's see what happens tomorrow morning when the full column is published and we share our final analysis.
We'll update this blog in the morning before 10 am…
Here we go…
The Footy
Last weekend was, as expected, an utter minefield for anyone betting on the English Football Leagues. It is difficult enough to predict the outcomes of matches mid-season, let alone early doors where you have no idea how fit or prepared a team is. The Premier League ‘should’ be a different story given how much money is involved. You would hope that teams in the English top-flight will be ready for action!
In my main Oberliga fancy, Oberneuland had a slow enough start as the game was 1-0 at HT. They blitzed their opponents second half for a 5-1 win although a late goal for Geestemunde cost me the -4-handicap bet I made at half time!
1 – Premier League Stats #1 – Opening Day Record
It’s the first day of the Premier League as everyone keenly anticipates a season wondering who will finish second behind Manchester City. Liverpool are the obvious candidates but will a failure to improve an admittedly excellent squad cost Jurgen Klopp? In any case, going by the history of Premier League opening days, Manchester United rank #1 with 2.15 points per game in the 27 years since Sky invented football.
However, many of those years were spent under the incomparable Sir Alex Ferguson, who helped United dominate English football. Chelsea rank #2 with 2.11 points per opening day game. Liverpool is #3 with 1.98 points.
At the other end of things, Brighton has lost both opening day fixtures, while Bournemouth has won one and lost three. Southampton’s opening day record is appalling with two wins from 20 fixtures and eight defeats for an average of 0.80 points per game! Leicester City is the other notably poor starter with just two wins from 12 opening day matches.
Incidentally, Southampton and Everton have drawn half or more of their opening day fixtures.
2 – Premier League Stats #2 – Interesting Head-to-Heads
Liverpool versus Norwich is played on Friday night so that game will be decided by the time you read this. Here are stats from three selected Premier League games:
Manchester United Vs. Chelsea
- United have won just 3 of their last 19 games in all competitions against Chelsea. However, all 3 wins have come in the last 7 matches.
- However, United have not lost in their last 6 Premier League home fixtures against the London outfit; 4 of those games ended in draws.
- With 18 wins in the Premier League era, no other team has beaten United more often than Chelsea.
Newcastle United Vs. Arsenal
- Arsenal has lost just once in the last 13 games against Newcastle; winning the rest.
- In the last 7 Premier League fixtures, the score has ended 1-0 to Arsenal three times, 2-1 to Arsenal twice, 2-1 to Newcastle once, and 2-0 to Arsenal.
- The last 6 meetings at St James Park have been decided by exactly one goal.
Crystal Palace Vs. Everton
- Palace has not won any of the last nine matches against Everton.
- Three of the last four matches at Selhurst Park have ended in a draw.
- Everton has not lost at Selhurst Park since 1994, an unbeaten run of eight games in all competitions.
3 – German Cup
It is the first round of the DFB Pokal, better known as the German Cup this weekend. There will be a variety of mismatches on paper but be wary because several of the top sides have yet to start their season. In last season’s first-round, 10 of the 32 matches featured a team who scored at least five goals.
While it is tempting to look at Bayern Munich, the dominant power in Germany, they only defeated a fifth-tier side 1-0 at this stage last season. It may pay to look toward fellow Bundesliga club, Fortuna Dusseldorf, who play fifth division Villingen. Fortuna have scored 14 and 15 in matches against admittedly even worse opposition, but they could be one of the teams to provide a drubbing. 5+ team goals is currently 13/8 on Bet365, 6+ is 10/3.
Atlas Delmenhorst vs. Werder Bremen could also prove interesting. Atlas is another fifth division side while Werder Bremen are a first division outfit. Last season, Bremen dispatched an Oberliga side 6-1 in the first round, followed by a 5-1 win over a fourth division side in the second round. Unfortunately, no odds are available for this 7:45 kick off on Saturday.
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The Horses
1 – Tricky Times For Racing
A golden summer for racing, in which Frankie Dettori proved a huge pull for punters, is set to end according to William Hill chief executive Philip Bowcock, who believes the sport cannot depend on an upturn in punter engagement to plug the impending hole in its finances.
Horseracing and greyhound betting were the primary drivers in a seven per cent increase in sports betting in William Hill shops during the first half of 2019, as punters engaged more with the sports in light of the reduction to £2 of the maximum stake for fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs) in April.
2 – Too Darn Hot Retires Young
Too Darn Hot, 2018's champion two-year-old, has been retired after picking up a career-ending leg injury.
The injury is thought to have been sustained during his Group One Sussex Stakes victory at Goodwood last week.
Connections of the John Gosden-trained colt said he had undergone successful surgery at Newmarket Equine Hospital.
3. The Stats
All eyes will be on the Shergar Cup today at Ascot. There's a bonus stat we'll look at shortly but I'll be heading to Haydock to follow Tom Dascombe's horses. He's got a 25% strike rate over the last 14 days, his RTF is over 50% and he does well at the track. He's got four runners worthy of a few each way bets –
