As summer reaches its height I have the annual feeling that football is arriving too quickly. The Ashes is only half way through Test 4 with all the one day stuff to follow. The big York race meeting in August isn’t until next week. It always feels a bit rushed and wrong to me – but we soon get drawn in. One of the brain’s more difficult adjustments is that from Test Cricket – the athletic game of strategy and chess … to 90 minutes of what a scathing dad of a childhood friend called “22 blokes in daft shorts chasing a bag of wind around a park”. There was a nugget of truth in this throwaway comment which seared into my brain circa 1980. Football has patterns (if you can read them) but there is little of true strategy. Any game-plan built around trying to whizz a ball into the pandemonium of the penalty area from the wings gives itself away. It isn’t really a plan. Most goals come from confusing defenders rather than outwitting them. There are, of course, moments of true beauty in football. I think these seem so beautiful because they adorn what is essentially a chaotic trench warfare.
However, I love football. I recently calculated that I have watched something over 2,500 complete 90 minute matches in my lifetime – either from the stands or on TV. I never watch edited highlights for a variety of reasons including the fact that they mess up my clarity of thought for trading.
I’m not particularly interested in individual players. I’ll make a point of taking in a game featuring some of the genuises but I’m more interested in the flow of the game and, above all, the form and confidence of teams. I base my entire trading strategy around 3-7 day form. If a team is buzzing I’ll lay any other team against them. I mostly avoid stats because I think they are almost all priced in. You can’t expect stats to give you an edge. Only the things that defy the stats can win you real money. I confess that I do have a few get-out-of-jail ‘stats-based’ in-running plays that I fall back on if things go awry. Pre-match, I believe the stats are priced into the market and you’ll go nuts looking for angles.
My approach is:-
1. Watch teams play and form a judgement about how they are performing at this moment. Are they buzzing? Are they scoring goals? Do they seem to have confidence?
2. Back teams that are buzzing against teams that are faltering, low on confidence or under particular pressure.
Football is 90% a confidence game and that’s why I trade on confidence more than any other factor. Once I have my views of where teams are at ‘this week’ then I begin looking for games where my personal opinion is opposite to the market. Where that happens I get involved. The best cases are where a team I want to lay is playing a team I want to back – especially when the former is a short priced favourite.
If a team is a long odds-on favourite to win a match but you don’t think they should be … then get involved. Remember – the key point is that you are backing your opinion that the game will prove to be a lot closer than the odds would suggest. If a team is 3/1 on and wins 1-0 with an 80th minute goal then it causes barely a ripple but you will have laid them pre-game, and cashed out on the hour. Easy! If the opposition takes a shock early lead then you are sitting pretty and can make decisions about getting out or staying in from behind a safety fence. Always nice.
As last season I will blog here about some of my plays and I’ll be tweeting as usual. I made a lot of money laying Man U last season and I’ll be following that strategy again to start with. There’s nothing much to go on until a few games have been played but a team that finished 4th with its goalkeeper man-of-the-match nearly every week is a gift. Now that the keeper is either leaving, dropped or will be in a confused state between the sticks I’ll start by laying ManU this weekend against Spurs. It might work out and it might not. Just something to get the juices flowing.
While I’m on the subject of mixed up minds – I think Raheem Sterling will be a revelation at City. He was wonderful 2 years ago and very in/out last season as he had weighty matters on young shoulders. Basically the only way to stop this guy is to foul him and I make him a footballer of the year contender in a happy Etihad home.
ManU bought Schweinsteiger who I’ve always thought (like Rooney) is a bit of a kidder. It will be fascinating to see how he performs. I don’t expect ManU to be top 3 this season. I think Milner will rack up good performances at Liverpool although I also think they will again fall short. There is still a gap for an unfashionable team to put some good stuff together and steal that 4th spot. Arsenal will have the best team they’ve had in years and could go close. If, as is rumoured today, they get Benzema then they would be genuine title contenders in my opinion. Chelsea will be a winning machine again but I’ll take City to win the league on a feast of Sterling inspired assists and goals.
The Championship will be the usual “everyone beats everyone” carnage. My team, Sheffield Wednesday, have become big spenders at this level. WIth an unknown Portuguese manager and a plan to play Iberian football with a team of Spaniards and Portuguese it’s impossible to predict what’s going to happen. They will have much improved quality and should be a top 6 team but I wouldn’t be backing or laying them at the moment.
In the Conference, Tranmere now find themselves cast as the big club. They have hired a manager who has successfully negotiated teams of similar stature out of the division and I expect them to be a team the bettor can hang his hat on this season – especially at home.
Which is a nice thought as I’ll be sat freezing at Prenton Park in the depths of winter. Seems a long way off on this sunny early August Friday.
Back to the cricket.
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