| Game | Bet & Price | Stake Size* | Best Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avl v Rea | Avl @ 2.0 | 2.5% | PaddyPower or Ladbrokes |
| Che v Ful | Che @ 1.5 | 5.0% | BetVictor or WilliamHill |
| Eve v Ars | Draw @ 3.6 | 2.5% | StanJames |
| Tot v Liv | Draw @ 3.54 | 2.5% | Pinnacle |
| Wig v Mci | Mci @ 1.57 | 4.0% | BetVictor or PaddyPower |
* Note - Betting Bible does not recommend adopting a value betting strategy without fully understanding staking, and value strategies in general. Please vist the Betting Bible site to read more.
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An interesting couple of weeks on the horizon, as with fixture congestion, there are a lot more variables than a normal game week. We've already seen the impact of fatigue on teams who have played mid week in European games, and the starting line-ups will be a lot less predictable this week, so bet timing will be very important over this period. In general, unless we see an obvious misprice, we tend to wait until gameday now to put the bets on, which means that if ateam is playing on a Sunday we still wait, which is starting to cause some disparity between the Tipped and Syndicate returns, as formation, player inclusions/exclusions are beginning to influence our picks more and more now.
A quick word also on staking. The size of the percentage stake reflects a combination of how much value is in the price, but also how likely the event will occur. As such, for the shorter priced bets, such as top teams to win, or the home win, you'll generally see a range of 2.5% to 5%. The draw bets, or outsider bets, you'll generally see a range of 1% to 2.5%.
Back to the picks:
Sunderland v QPR. Had it not been for the unpredicability of the Harry impact, this would have presented a nice home win bet. As it is now, with Harry's track record, we're inclined to leave this bet alone for the time being.
Villa v Reading. We've gone with the win above, but we may still go for the outright Reading lay closer to kick-off. There is also a possibility that we'll wait in-running to place the Home win bet, to get a feel for the set up by Lambert, and to take a slightly higher back price. After the poor start to the season, Lambert has realised he doesn't the players to play very expansive/attacking football, and as such has settled for just being hard to beat. Against Reading however, he will likely push for a win, given Reading's frailties at the back.
Chelsea v Fulham. Pretty much a bread and butter back. These Top 4 team home win bets have historic value of 10% over the past 12 seasons, and Fulham will still be without Hangeland, and a few of their more creative players, so unless Rafa selects the Chelsea reserve team, it's a back from us.
Everton v Arsenal. A definite wait and see on the starting line-ups, as Arsenal seemed to have rested key Arsenal players at the weekend, perhaps with this game in mind, whilst Everton's reliance on Fellani (similar to their reliance on Cahill in previous seasons) has become evident. Regardless, the draw value looks very strong at current prices, and we've already taken a 2% exposure on this, however there is potentially some value in the Arsenal win, therefore the syndicate could be tempted by a straight Everton lay pending the team news.
Spurs v Liverpool, not too much to say on this, the draw price looks good value, barring any weird line-up selections. Similarly the City v Wigan game, the City win is good implied value, however be very wary of starting line-ups here, as Mancini likes to be unpredictable with his picks.
Lastly, it's not up there, but the United v West Ham game we will inevitably be backing United again, however we're happy taking in-play prices on the United fixtures in the short-term, as we've been able to generate significantly higher prices given United's slow starts during games.
Southampton v Norwich, Stoke v Newcastle, and Swansea v West Brom are all games we're not touching because of the current over and under performances of the teams involved relative to long-term form, which makes us wary of correctly picking the value.
| Last Week's Tips | Stake* | Price | Rtn* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sun Win | 2.0% | 2.50 | (2.0)% |
| Wigan Draw | 2.5% | 3.67 | (2.5)% |
| Swansea Win | 2.0% | 3.6 | (3.0)% |
| Sou Draw | 1.5% | 3.6 | (1.5)% |
| Total GW13 | (9.0)% | ||
| GW12 | (5.6)% | ||
| Previous GWs | 48.8% | ||
| Aggregate Season to date | 34.2% | ||
*As a percentage of total bankroll.
| Last Week's Tips | Stake* | Effective Price | Rtn* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sun Win | 2.0% | 2.50 | (2.0)% |
| Wig Draw | 2.0% | 3.67 | (2.0)% |
| Swa Win | 3.0% | 3.75 | (3.0)% |
| Sou Draw | 1.5% | 3.60 | (1.5)% |
| Mnu to Win^ | 1.0% | 3.00 | 2.0% |
| Ars Draw | 1.0% | 4.19 | 3.2% |
| Total GW13 | (3.3)% | ||
| GW12 rtn | (3.6)% | ||
| Previous GWs | 49.9% | ||
| Season rtn | 43.0% | ||
*As a percentage of total bankroll.
^ In play changeover bet. Pre-game 1.2 lay, turned into a 2.97 back on 60mins after the introduction of match winning substitutions.
Note - Differences occur between Tipped bets and Syndicate returns given the volatility of prices offered throughout the week, as well as gameday and in-play trading decisions made by the Betting Bible syndicate bet selectors.
Tips performance
An unfortunate week in terms of returns on the tipped bets, and another reminder that the pre-game bets being tipped are for value, in that we strongly believe that the odds do not accurately reflect the statistical likelihood of the event occurring. This edge will be evident over the course of the season, and you WILL have losing game weeks, even 2 in a row as we've just seen. This is why the stake sizes are recommended, as you need to manage your bet sizes to protect your capital and not over exposure yourself to individual bets.
Anyway, in terms of performance, the Wigan draw and Swansea win bets, the value was evident in the way the games panned out. The Wigan draw bet in fact touched 1.15 in-running, but Wigan managed to score in the last 30 seconds of the game, which does raise the concept of taking profits in-running if your this suits your risk appetite better. If it does, it's easy enough to place the order into Betfair pre-game to close your position at pre-defined odds. Theoretically, if you assume that the in-running prices are accurate, this would even out to the same return over the course of the season, however if you want to reduce the volatility in returns, this is certainly a viable option. For what it's worth, we were assessing Wigan in-running odds up during the game for this very reason, however the draw price seemed way out of line compared to normal in-running draw prices with only 5 minutes to go (as high as 1.5), and as such we did not take the option to close the bet given the lack of value in the price being offered. As a comparison, the Swansea v Liverpool draw price was under 1.5 with over 10 minutes to go.
The 2 worse performing bets in terms of value throughout the game were the Sunderland win aand Southampton draw bets. The Sunderland bet was arguably the thinnest value pre-game, with West Brom's form and Sunderland's lack of. However a 25 yard 'almost worldy', a goalkeeper tripping over his own feet, and penalty that wasn't a penalty all played their part in the game, and we still foresee a turnaround in Sunderland fortunes in coming weeks that should present some decent value in their prices.
The Newcastle bet demonstrated how difficult Newcastle are finding it to cope with such a congested fixture schedule, and without their best midfield players, and has led to a significant price adjustment within our statistics, therefore expect not to see them on any picks for a while now.
Lastly, the Swansea bet performed reasonably well, despite the loss, and we're happy that the pre-game value in that level of price would pay out handsomely over the course of a season.
Syndicate performance
A week that saw the largest disparity between tipped versus syndicate acutal returns, after some good gameday decisions and in-play trading from the syndicate bet selectors. We do not enjoy generating positive syndicate returns in a week that the tipped bets earn negative returns, however the more volatile in-play bets really worked in the Syndicate's favour this time out, and it serves as another reminder that there will be some volatility in the weekly returns, but we ahead of our 25% return on bankroll target for the season.
Firstly the United bet, is something we've been looking at closely over the last few weeks. The initial lay stirred some controversy amongst the Syndicate bet selectors, however United have come from behind 12 out of 20 times this season, and given the likely set up of the QPR team, we expected there to be an opportunity to take the United win at a better price. The timing of the goal from QPR presented the perfect opportunity for the reverse bet, as the impact of the Top 4 team's super subs seemed undervalued in-running present, as when you've been putting all your energy into stopping RVP and Rooney for 60 minutes, the last thing you want is a Mexican midget being thrown in the mix to spoil your Saturday night celebrations in Public.
Secondly, the Arsenal draw bet was something we liked in the week in the absence of Theo, who's pace has made a big difference in the Arsenal team this season, either through coming off the bench, or playing the full 90. The Arsenal starting XI put out by Wenger made the draw bet even greater value, with Wilshire, and Gervinho not starting, so we topped up to 1% pre-game, and in-running we never really thought about exiting the draw bet.
The Chelsea v City bet after seeing the team news announcements however, was not on the cards. The City line-up included a version of Vincent Kompany almost as bandaged up as Mike Sharkey post ACL treatment, and they'd accidently started their best substitute in place of Carlos Tevez. On the Chelsea side, Benitez, as we speculated, played with the 2 holding midfield players, and set up with the not-to-lose-mentality, which almost tempted us with the draw bet, however given the uncertainty around the fitness of Kompany, we left for another day.
As already discussed, there was a reasonable amount of successful in-play trading through the syndicate this weekend, and you may be wondering why this isn't tipped. Unfortunately, these situations are difficult to tip, as they rely on our feel for events as gameday unfolds, right from the announcement of the team sheets, to the progress of the game. The tips tend to be on stable games, without much expectation to gameday sensitivity.
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