The new season is underway and it’s very much like A NEW YEAR has begun. The resolutions are still fresh in the memory. Just as the new found resolution to MAKE THIS SEASON PAY is the one thing we are adamant about. Until we go off the rails.
However, do not despair. There are many many people out there who want to help us make money from our betting. They usually begin by offering us some much needed advice but sooner or later they can be “persuaded” to offer us the chance to join their wonderful tipping service for a “greatly reduced payment”. Sounds familiar? It’s all over the internet.
However there is occasionally the odd bit of advice or such which sets me thinking. A few bits of advice do seem worth noting.
1. Study stats as often as you are able. There is no doubt that stats do have a big influence when looking for a way forward. Find a good site with as much info on it as is possible and study, study, study.
2. Do you ave any old systems in your possession? Dig them out. Read the rules, then set about seeing how you can improve on the rules which were once useful to that system. It is almost certain that with a little jiggling about, an omission here and an addition there and you’ll have something new to think about and maybe paper trade for a while.
3. Lastly, use the internet as much as you can. There are blogs and forums dealing with all sorts of betting and even if you find something that’s not your forte, don’t dismiss it. Read it as it’s likely that you’ll pick up a bit a knowledge from it which you’ll find useful sometime in the future, when you’re looking at something completely unrelated. I know, as it has happened to me. You might not have any knowledge of, say, Spread Betting. Out of curiosity you start to read an article about it which tells you how the basic spreads are arrived at. Sometime later you’re assessing a match were the betting is close, something clicks and you realise the odds on the match look out of kilter with the spread. Believe me, these things do happen. So you find a Spread from a different layer and your initial thoughts are vindicated. The spread doesn’t agree with the bookies odds. You just may have your EDGE for that match.
So read, read and then read some more. There’s loads of info out there just waiting to be used.
Fancy trying something a little different? Why not try an old trading strategy with a little difference. That old chestnut LAY the DRAW, is always rife for a change of approach. So find a match where the away side is regarded as the UNDERDOG and lay the draw and if the UNDERDOG manages to score first, you then LAY It. Nothing new there but it means you have another string to your bow. It’s taking a chance but if you were right in the first place you’ll most likely finish with TWO winning bets.
Another wrinkle to think about. You’ve found your match a DRAW seems way out of range. The LAY price is reasonable so you make your bet. Come 60 minutes and there’s no sign of a goal. What do you do? Sit tight with fingers crossed and hope for the best? Or do you cut your losses? At this point in the game the draw is likely to be offered at 2.0 You have a decision to make. The more you read the more knowledge you’ll have at your fingertips when decisions like this have to be made. A “get out” strategy is a must. Only experience will tell you what is the correct answer for you. For myself, I’d cut my losses and Back the draw at this point.
There are many forums out there, which invite punters to offer their systems for others forumites to comment on, etc. These are the places we should all be making ourselves familiar with. Some of these offerings are gold dust in the making. Read them and don’t be afraid to add a bit here, cross out a bit there. There are also some very highly knowledgeable people on these forums. And they don’t mind others using their expertise.
It was after reading a snippet on one of these forums that I began thinking about AWAY teams and how they fared over a period of time. Using very basic stats I found that over ten seasons AWAY sides in the PREMIERSHIP, WON 30% of their away games only ONCE IN THAT PERIOD. Food for thought. If 30% or less are WINS that means that 70% or more are LAYING chances. Well almost. What has to be taken into consideration is the fact that a small number of sides will win more than their fair share of games when on their travels. Last season the top four away sides won 42 games between them. The previous season the top three won 32 games between them. So it is obvious that there needs to be some form of filtering to take into consideration the effects of these sides.
My own thoughts are to delete any games in which any of the top four sides, from last season, when playing away, are engaged in. Sounds a little confusing at first but it works out quite simply.
The following shows how the top sides fared when playing away season by season for 10 years.
2012/13. Man. Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, ‘Spurs and Man. City won 51 away games
2011/12. Man. Utd, Man. City and Arsenal won 32 between them.
2010/11. Arsenal, Man City, Chelsea and ‘Spurs won 30 games.
2009/10. Man. Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal and Aston Villa. Won 38 all told.
2008/09. Chelsea, Liverpool, Man. Utd and Aston Villa won 49 such games.
2007/08. Chelsea, Man. Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool and Portsmouth won 51 away games.
2006/07. Man. Utd and Chelsea won 25 games. nobody else won more than 7 games.
2005/06. Man. Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool won 33 games.
2004/05. Man. Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal won 37 games between them.
2003/04. Man. Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal won 34 games.
When the teams winning most games in a season are taken out of the equation, the following season, the number of possible games in any one week is greatly reduced.
In the 2010/22 season four teams won 30 games between them out of a total of 90 wins by away sides. When these four teams are discounted from the following seasons fixtures (in which they won 32 games between them), there are vastly fewer games to consider over the season. Probably between six to eight matches for consideration each week.
With the odd exception, it’s obvious that Man. Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea can be discarded almost on a continual basis. My own choice would be any team which wins NINE or more away games in a season should be left out of consideration the following season.
For the present season, ‘Spurs and Man.City should be added to the “perennial three” as the teams to disregard.
The following tables show how the visiting teams have fared when playing over the last ten seasons.
Visiting Teams
| season | 12/13 | 11/12 | 10/11 | 09/10 | 08/09 | 07/08 | 06/07 | 05/06 | 04/05 | 03/04 | total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| wins | 106 | 116 | 90 | 90 | 110 | 104 | 100 | 111 | 97 | 105 | 1029 |
| draws | 108 | 93 | 111 | 96 | 97 | 100 | 98 | 77 | 110 | 108 | 998 |
| defeats | 166 | 171 | 179 | 194 | 173 | 176 | 182 | 192 | 173 | 167 | 1773 |
| % of no-wins | 71.10 | 69.47 | 76.31 | 76.31 | 71.04 | 72.62 | 73.67 | 70.78 | 74.46 | 72.36 |
Checking through these stats it becomes apparent that if we deduct from the total of games won by the teams listed above (380) they account for 37% of all the games resulting in away wins. Making a good case for is disregarding teams which do better than average under the circumstances we’ve been studying.
There are a couple of new competitions now plying their trade. I don’t give much hope for either of them lasting long in their present form. One is from Corals and the second from Collosus. Do you fancy trying to find SEVEN correct scores? It will be a competition for the Syndicates and if one of them hits the mark early on that will be the end of that. At least that’s how I see it. The same can be said for Coral’s 15 horse accumulator. But more about this stuff later.
