Over / Under 2.5 goals | Correct Score – Football Betting Strategies with Goals

SCORELINES

Betting on Goals

The scoreline is the one outcome which is common to each and every football match. As you can imagine tens of thousands of pounds often hang on that very outcome. Consequently there are many varied strategies which are bandied about for your choice.

Some leagues are ripe for this type of betting. The French Divisions spring quickly to mind. Most games tend to be fairly tight.
The majority of the popular leagues are averaging slightly below 3 goals per match with the Premiership a little below 2.70.
As with everything worth having in life, work has to be done to take advantage of things on offer.
Scouring stats can be time consuming but it needs to be done. Don’t forget the old saying, “the harder I work, the luckier I get”.

Setting out to evaluate possible scorelines can take more time than we will ever have to spare. So somewhere along the line we will have to cut corners.
At present there isn’t much info to go on in the Premiership.
At home there are three sides which have gone OVER 2.5 GOALS in each match played.
Still at home there are six sides which have gone OVER 2.5 goals in two of their three games. How good it would be if we could just match up similar scoring away sides and start from a position of  2- 1 either way. If it was just that simple.
Or perhaps start from the reverse position of and look for sides who have recorded lower scoring games. At home only Stoke City have a 100% record for UNDERS. However NINE sides have gone UNDER in two of their three home games.
Last season two thirds of the Premiership sides went OVER in at least half of their games.
The breakdown is interesting. Exactly half of the home sides went UNDER in more than half of their games. A situation mirrored by sides playing away.
At present 27 Premiership games have gone UNDER 2.5 goals. A little short of 46 %. Last season the figure was 45.79%. So not much difference.
Other stats from last season include:- ( Under 2.5 goals).

Lowest occurring,  0 - 2   13 times. Equates to 1 in every 29 games. 
                   0 - 1   14 times.            1 in every 27 games. 
                   0 - 0   25 times             1 in every 15 games.

It might well be worth leaving 0 – 2 (currently 2 in 59 games) and 0 – 1 (5 in 59 games) out of calculations. The stats are not in favour of them.
For those who like to keep up to date with trends below are the returns for the most popular Correct Scores for the past five seasons.

            2010/11    2009/10    2008/09    2007/08    2006/07.
 0 - 0        25         32         42         26         34
 1 - 0        40         33         42         43         40
 0 - 1        14         26         30         31         35
 1 - 1        52         39         34         52         45
 2 - 0        30         34         34         34         31
 0 - 2        13         16         16         23         17

This covers the Correct Scores which are UNDER 2.5 GOALS.

By far the most successful score is 1 – 1. Closely followed by 1 – 0. Then there is a bit of a levelling out except for 0 – 2.
On balance it seems best to stick with either a Home Win or a Draw score.

The OVER 2.5 GOALS returns are much more of a varied lot.

            2010/11    2009/10    2008/09    2007/08    2006/07.
 1 - 2        24         19         25         21         20
 2 - 1        40         42         36         29         42
 2 - 2        27         21         18         17         15
 3 - 1        13         16         16         21         21
 3 - 0        20         23         17         11         19

Once we go past a total of two goals for a match we find it harder to be accurate in our forecasting. Not Surprising really.
As each season in the Premiership covers 380 matches a figure of 38 matches gives us only 10 percent success.
Looking at these stats for three or more goals, 2 – 1 would be a good starting point, tending to average well above the other popular scores.

All in all attempting to correctly forecast the score of a match is just as fraught as trying to assess how many corners will be gained. There are more variables to consider than we can cope with, with too much accuracy anyway.
However there are many punters who find the challenge one they can’t sidestep.

A new “market” has appeared with the new season. Based on the FIRST GOALSCORER.
Now finding the First Goalscorer is quite a job in itself. So the new additions to the outcome is nothing more than a “come-on”.
If you correctly nominate the First Goalscorer and he scores again you receive double the odds. If he’s having a wonderful day and hits a third you get treble the odds.
This market thrives on REPUTATIONS. Should your favourite striker have a lean spell (a certain Mr Torres springs to mind), you will find yourself footing the bill for the bookies cigars. Again.
Another point you must be aware of is that your choice can hit a double or a hat-trick which doesn’t include the first goal.
Whilst the adverts for this new market look good, to me it’s just another come-on to entice the less experienced into one of the best money makers for the bookmaker.

Having dabbled with correct scores, I then stumbled across a strategy, on the internet, which I think will benefit not from forecasting correct scores but from FIRST GOAL SCORED.
I don’t for one minute think it is anything new, in the basic strategy but a little tweaking here or there might well make a difference.
Something for next time.
Don’t forget, Bet with your HEAD, not your HEART.
Be Lucky.