The Premier League winners market 2013/14

As I write the title I am a little shock to see I am writing '13/14', where does time go?! I still think back to the seasons of 00/01/02 as being yesteryear but it really isn't anymore. Anyway, enough inane tittle and on to the most important topic of the season: who will win the Premier League?

The summer seems to have been a manager's summer, and unusually each team has a new boss going into the new season. This creates something of a problem for bettors as it means we are entering something of an unknown. That being said however, I do think that a more than necessary emphasis has been placed upon the three incoming managers and it is going to be more down to the players on this occasion. Of course there is also the added difficulty of the season beginning before the transfer window slams shut and there are still some big names to decide on their futures. Regardless, here is what I think at this moment in time:

Manchester City have gone about their summer dealings uncharacteristically quietly and sensibly. It appears to be a Pellegrini-effect as he has chosen to keep below radar in his first months in charge. Problem characters such as Tevez and Balotelli have been discarded and the squad has silently and carefully rebuilt following their disappointment last season. This does not mean they haven't spent a great deal of money however - adding the likes of Navas, Negredo, Fernandinho and others for hefty fees. I imagine it will be a completely different looking City and one which operates a lot more functionally and organised. Last season they had the best defence in the league and barring the injury to Nastasic there is no reason they cannot continue that into this year. Odds on City to record the most clean sheets are not amazingly appealing at evens with Paddypower, but possibly worth a consideration when you look at the frailties in United and Chelsea's defences. The focus over the summer has been bolstering the attack and in Alvaro Negredo they have a proven goalscorer. Whether he will start ahead of Aguero often enough is difficult to call, but 28/1 with Sportingbet for Negredo to be top scorer is certainly tempting, especially considering he bagged 31 in 42 last year with Sevilla. Going into the opening match City are favourites for the title at 3.2 on Betfair, and overall that looks like a sensible price-up. They have the experience of winning a title in recent years and will be a lot more disciplined and focused this season.

The Special One is back at Chelsea and is making a particular noise with the Wayne Rooney saga. It strikes me that Chelsea have been very clever in their dealings with Rooney and have royally stitched United up. Undoubtedly Mourinho wants the player and if he gets him it will be an almighty blow to both Moyes and United, and Chelsea's title hopes would likely increase somewhat, but even if he does not succeed Rooney has created a situation where the United fans are now against him and he is 'stuck' in a team he does not want to play in. The irony of it all that he asked for greater players to be signed at the club, only to fall behind Van Persie in the pecking order and get the hump. Moving on from Rooney however, as we cannot really factor in things we do not know the outcome of yet, and Chelsea appear to be slightly overpriced in my view due to the Mourinho effect. They have signed decent players in Schurrle and Van Ginkel, and will certainly benefit from the return of Lukaku, but apart from that they appear to have a similar squad to last year but with some of the spine of the team a year older. They finished 14 points off United last season and that number probably would have been larger had United not had the title done weeks before the end (therefore playing with less interest vs Chelsea at Old Trafford in the 0-1 defeat), leading me to believe there is not a great deal of value in their odds of 3.35 at the moment. Of slightly more interest is the 24/1 available on Lukaku to be top scorer with various bookies, along with Mata to record top assists at 11/1 with Boylesports.

Manchester United are certainly an enigma this season following the retirement of their leader over the last double decade and more. They trounced the league last year but it will certainly not be quite so easy this year, and they begin the season perhaps somewhat unfairly as third favourites at 3.9. They have the same team as last year, with the possible exception of Rooney if he does leave the club, but presumably the assumption is that the lack of imported talent has meant that the other two have caught up somewhat and even overtaken the champions. While I agree that United should have already strengthened their squad as there are particular obvious areas of weakness, I cannot see that Chelsea have made enough of a step up to overtake United as second favourites. Should Rooney leave for Chelsea however, then that would change matters completely, and perhaps the market is as it is because it has already anticipated this move. I think it is unlikely Moyes will end the transfer season without adding a name to his squad, though it might not be the big-name player he so craves, meaning the purchase is likely to be Everton-sourced. The lack of a new playmaker and the possible departure of Rooney could mean an increased role for the talented Kagawa, who showed great promise last season despite spending most of his time on the bench. As an outside shot, he can be got at 21/1 to record the most assists this season with Paddypower. I think United are going to be very prone to market over-reactions this year given the departure of Ferguson and the unknown which surrounds Moyes. A bad run could see them drift out massively so I would advise waiting to see how they get on before backing them, therefore possibly grabbing much longer odds. The 'top 3' market should also be closely observed as United are already at 1.47 and could push out even further making for a tasty trade. It is unlikely that an unchanged Arsenal side (currently 4th favs for top 3) is going to outperform an unchanged United team in my opinion, but who knows.

One thing I am sure of; regardless of where Luis Suarez or Gareth Bale ends up these three teams will be the only ones seriously challenging for the Premier League title. Spurs and Arsenal have good squads but miles away from the title winning squads they need. As for which of the three will take the title, I do not know! Last season I made the mistake of laying United when they were out in front and I took one of my biggest losses of the season on them when they triumphed with ease. In truth, I hated laying United as a United fan, as I found myself caught in two minds and wasn't able to just bask in the glory I should have been enjoying, so maybe this year I will consider if it is really worth it.

Over the last two seasons a successful market has been the straight forecast, although this year the odds are a lot more appealing, though of course a lot more difficult to predict! For the best value I would currently look to Man City 1st/ United 2nd at 8.4 as it will probably trade lower throughout the season, especially if United beat Chelsea early on at Old Trafford.

This season will chop and change, there will be plenty of trading opportunities in this market, it will just be all about picking the right moments. I can't wait.

Revolution or Evolution?

After Ladbrokes bought the floundering Betdaq last year many were hoping for a long awaited serious challenger to the monopoly created over at Betfair. Earlier this year the 'Betdaq manifestso' was released and waxed lyrical about promising 'more liquidity', 'lower rates' and 'no premium charge', and while this sounded promising most people were waiting before they passed judgement on whether the takeover had been successful or not. A few months on then, how are Betdaq doing?

I was impressed to see Aintree splashed from top to bottom in purple the other day as the Daq marketing team had obviously chosen to go all out for the National. Huge white tanks were driven up the roads outside the venue as those on board cried 'Don't settle for Betfair' and covered the crowds in Betdaq flyers. Flyers, tanks and billboards are all lovely but they aren't much use if there is still no money in the markets. In a bid to gain more liquidity quickly, they offered commission free winnings on the National and this did certainly seem to have a positive short term effect (see below). Where the struggle lies however, is getting people to keep their winnings on the site and not, as I did, withdraw them immediately to return to Betfair.

Picture of total matched on the National (taken from Twitter account of @TrevDaq)

The biggest competition this week is The Masters and I was surprised to discover that Betdaq currently has almost double the amount matched in the outright winners market than Betfair, with £13.6m and £7.1m matched respectively. This would definitely appear to suggest that the tide may be turning and as long as Daq can keep hold of a few customers from each tournament, then it may well begin to compete. It will be interesting to see how the two progress as the tournament goes in play.

BetDaq

Betfair

Unfortunately however things are not looking as good in Betdaq's other markets and if we delve into one of the (subjectively) biggest football matches of the day, the Daq's liquidity begins to fall down once again compared to Betfair.

A poor show from BetDaq

Better from Betfair

This is much the same across the board for most of the sports today, so it would be fair to assume that many of the National punters have just moved their winnings along to the Masters in search of another 66/1 winner.

So what can we learn from this? Is Betfair a machine which just cannot be caught? Or are BetDaq in it for real this time? Personally it looks to me like the Daq are still finding their feet and are progressing slowly but surely with the strong backing of Ladbrokes. This type of thing does not happen overnight, people do not just wake up and decide to take all of their pennies out of Betfair, it will need to be a very slow and gradual movement from one to the other. Offering the odd commission free market at the big events seems to be working so far, though I'm not sure what it does for their profit margins, but it is still going to take a lot more than that to work permanently, though based on the show so far their backers are willing to invest a lot in marketing and branding to boost their reputation, which is a positive sign. I'm not sure if it is possible or not but I would have thought that offering a commission free period on, say, football for a month would gain the site a lot of attention and attract a lot more customers. While I reckon this would be too much for the profit margins to handle however, it would probably achieve gains in the long run, even if there were short term losses. 

Whatever the case, BetDaq appears to be slowly evolving into a genuine competitor to Betfair and it will be interesting to see if they can begin to match everyone's expectations soon. 

Market Madness

So Harry couldn't forge a great escape this week and now finds his team 7 points off safety with just 8 games to go. Defeat to Villa saw QPR's pre-match relegation price of 1.54 plummet to 1.23, while Villa flew back out to 3.05 in this everlasting merry-go-round. The optimists will say there is still time for QPR, and indeed Reading (1.09 for the drop), to escape the bank-busting relegation and many still find themselves in disbelief that a club who has spent so much money are in such a bad position. They are now in serious trouble however and games are running out, the lay at 1.22 is now far less appealing than it was a few months ago and I believe people would be best keeping clear. Slightly further up and there are some very interesting prices with Southampton and Sunderland both sitting 4 points clear of the drop, though it will be only 1 point if Wigan win their game in hand. At present the Southampton price to go down is 8.8 while Sunderland, on the same points and with a better goal difference, are at 4.4. It could be argued that Sunderland have a more difficult run-in, with games against Man United, Chelsea, Spurs and Everton to come, but with quality players such as Steven Fletcher and Seb Larsson at their disposal I find it hard to see why there is such a big gap between the two prices.

Further up the table and Fulham were the obvious winners in the race for the top 10 with their victory away at Spurs, while Newcastle have a right to feel aggrieved after their loss to Wigan. Fulham are now the front runners for the 10th placed spot at odds of 2.3, with Stoke coming up the rear at 3.7.

Higher up is where it is really beginning to get interesting though and the last 10 days have seen huge fluctuations in the top 6 and top 4 markets. In my previous post I noted Spurs were 1.43 for the top 4 finish, while 9 days ago I highlighted how the markets had Liverpool at 1.49 for the top 6. After defeat at Southampton and Everton's win against Man City, Everton now find themselves 1.85 favourites on Merseyside, while Liverpool have drifted out to 2.02. Similarly, after losing back-to-back games including a poor home defeat against Fulham, Spurs have drifted right out to 2.08 for the top 4 and are still drifting! Arsenal are now 1.82 to rob their North London friends of the Champions League place despite being four points behind with a game in hand. 

There is certainly some serious money to be made at this time of year as prices can change a lot more than they would during the middle of the season, for obvious reasons. Needless to say however, that with greater opportunity comes greater risk. I was lucky enough to have layed Spurs for the top 4 last week, but then I unfortunately had layed  QPR to go down, so swings and roundabouts. It's just about finding the right ones. 

I'll leave you with a stat which I have only just noticed (sorry if this is old news to you) - QPR have not been higher than 18th at ANY STAGE this season. Absolutely abysmal.

Work, text betting and profits

I apologise for the lack of posts recently, but I have been pretty busy at university recently. Being in my third year, things are starting to get a little bit tough so time for trading and blogging has been a tad limited. This is something I was prepared for however, and is exactly the reason I have embarked on my newer challenge of making a profit from the long term markets as it suits my situation better. Despite this however, I have been making bits and pieces over the last few weekends, taking a total profit of £24.41. The initial difficulty I was facing with trading this season is beginning to ease up a bit for a number of reasons; I am beginning to get back into my old ways and have adjusted my staking plan so it is more effective; There is more form to choose from now and trends are starting to shine through; I have had the last few weekends free for a bit of trading. The point about trends is the most crucial I feel, as this is something which bears a lot of weight on how I trade. I am a bit of a stats man, and I will do research on trends in goals, form, teams playing at certain places and so on, so the fact that I now have some data to work with is extremely helpful, and ensures I am not just guessing, as many are at the start of the season.

My bets in the longer term markets are shaping up nicely also, particularly as Chelsea and Arsenal are beginning to slip as I predicted. I will remain in my Chelsea trade for a while yet, as I think that their 'poor spell' is just beginning and they will begin to drop off over the Christmas period due to their small squad. At present they are still at a respectable 2.04 to come in the top 2. In my top 4 trade, Arsenal have been woeful as predicted and it is the time of year when Wenger's head is being called for, but their price is being held low by the torrid performances of their closest competitor: Spurs. I have previously expressed my reservations in putting my faith in Spurs and they have proceeded to throw away numerous chances to pull away from Arsenal in the league. Despite the anarchy in the Gooner camp, they still remain at 1.82 to finish in the top 4. I think I have decided that if Arsenal beat Fulham today and Spurs lose to City tomorrow, then I am getting out of this bet. I will instead swap my stance to laying Spurs, as they have a particularly nasty month coming up.

I tried out Paddy Power's text betting service this week, as I was using it for matched betting purposes, and I was impressed with how easy it is to now make a bet. This is of course likely to be highly detrimental to the addicted punter who can't find a bookie or a laptop, but for everyone else it is a stupidly fast way of placing a bet. By texting '50 Man United Teletext' I had put on a £50 bet for United to win, which was confirmed by an automatic reply text. The only problem with the service is the inability to peruse the odds and find a bet one might like, meaning that you are blindly choosing to back a team without knowing the odds. In order to find the odds, you could obviously go online on your mobile but then why would you not just place the bet online? I think the service is a good idea, but very gimmicky and unlikely to be used too much once the novelty has worn off.

Bet365 returned their famous £50 free in-play bet this week and it was as good as ever. I managed to match the bet to take a £35 profit, while taking a £32 profit from matching my text bet at enhanced odds. I won't put matched betting results in the P+L as I don't think it really counts as 'trading', but I'll keep you updated on what I do do so you know where to look for the latest offers. Paddy Power are offering enhanced odds on certain bets on your first text bet (up to £50), so look out for those to take a small profit, if you haven't already.

That is all from me today, I hope you all enjoy your weekends.

Cashing out and topping up

This last week of football has been pretty dire. Regular followers of this blog will know how much I despise the international breaks, especially when the Premier League is just kicking into gear. Finally the domestic action is back and tomorrow starts with what should be a cracker from the Lane, and my money will be on Spurs, for what it's worth.

This week I have been exiting a number of trades, while topping up others and entering one more. As previously stated, Norwich and Spurs have both done enough for me so I exited the trades which involved them. On the Norwich to be relegated bet I traded out for around £31 on both scenarios for a 37% profit, which I was happy with given that my target was 10%. The 'Spurs to finish top 6' and 'Norwich to finish rock bottom' bets I took my stake back from, but have left the profit on one side for now and will look to even it up at a later date. I reduced my liability on the Fulham top 10 bet by 50%, and will look to take a full profit of around 25% in the future sometime.

After much umming and ahhing, I have decided to top up on my Arsenal top 4 lay rather than take a loss at this time. After studying recent years and talking to others about the trade, I think it is unlikely Arsenal will remain as low as 1.5 all season, so I think the right thing to do is to lay them further, leaving my liability on the trade around £184. I mentioned before that I was looking to find a way to oppose Chelsea, and I have decided to lay them for the top 2 at odds of 2.2 for £121. I didn't really have a great deal of choice on this one, seeing as the winners price of 4.4 is far to high for me to take on, which really only left this market and the 'winners without the top 2' market. Liquidity is a bit of an issue and this led me to take a price slightly higher than I wanted, but hopefully it will be okay when it comes to trading out. I also topped up £25 on the straight forecast bets, leaving my liability on that market at £175.


I don't have a great deal else to report today as the week has been largely dull, but I am looking forward to seeing how these new trades perform. Have a good weekend.