May 2012
20th May, 4pm
Congratulations to Man City who snatched the Premier League crown from the brink of disaster, in possibly the most dramatic season finale in Premier League history! Two very late goals seeing them over finishing line with seconds to spare. It was a memorable season, with some of the best matches ever seen in the Premier League amongst the highlights of a genuinely competitive campaign.
Our final bets of the season fell as Man City made hard work of the title, our next bets will come at the start of the Euros.
Congratulations also go to Chelsea who pulled off something of a smash and grab job to win the Champions League. It looks like being a fitting end to the career of Didier Drogba, who has won pretty much every trophy going in his time at Chelsea. He’s certainly lit up the English game for 8 years, mostly for the right reasons! The old fashioned centre-forward will be missed.
Only a couple of weeks till Euro 2012 takes centre stage, keep an eye on our special Euro 2012 section for all the latest offers and betting specials in the build up to the tournament. We’ll be back in June, stay tuned!
12th May, 2pm
Tomorrow is the final day of the Premier League, another fantastic season is almost over, but there’s still plenty to be decided. We’ve taken a look at the various combinations of who can finish where and reckon we’ve plucked out a winning bet to finish the season with!
At the very top the equation is simple (barring a hugely improbable goal difference swing). Man City win, they win the league.
The 3rd Champions League spot will go to Arsenal if they beat West Brom. They could still take it with a worse result if Spurs/Newcastle fail elsewhere.
4th place in the Premier League usually means Champions League football, but this may or may not be the case this year! As Chelsea are in the final, but 6th in the league, things are a bit different to normal. If Chelsea win the final they will take the last spot, at the expense of the 4th placed team in the league. If they lose to Bayern, the 4th placed team will enter the qualifying stage. Its looking likely that Spurs or Newcastle will be supporting the German team next weekend.
At the bottom its a shoot out between QPR and Bolton. QPR are currently best placed, but they have a daunting trip to champions-elect Man City. A point will do it for them, but if they lose, they will be hoping for a favour from Stoke who are home to Bolton.
The FBS best guess is as follows:
Champions – Man City.
3rd – Arsenal.
4th – Spurs.
Relegated – Bolton.
Champions League winner – Bayern Munich.
Those selections make a nice accumulator if you fancy a punt for a couple of quid!
So, for our final bet of the Premier League season, I’m going for a punt on the big match of the day. It has to be Man City v QPR, with the impact it has on both ends of the table. There’s talk of nerves and tension affecting City with the prize at stake, but for me I think it will be straightfoward. Not only will City win, but they will win in style, with an emphatic scoreline to match.
I’m going to suggest a split bet here, covering exactly a 3 goal winning margin, or a 4 goal or better winning margin. Stan James has the stand out price for these two bets, so if you fancy joining in for a punt, make sure you take advantage of the Stan James free bet promotion, which will get you £10 free to go with your first bet.
To confirm, our final bets of the season are as follows:
Sunday 13th May. 3:00pm. Man City v QPR.
Man City to beat QPR by exactly 3 goals. £5 @ 4.8
Man City to beat QPR by 4 or more goals. £5 @ 3.8
Enjoy the games.
8th May, 2pm
The FA Cup final finished 2-1 to Chelsea, a disappointing performance from Liverpool who didn’t really play until they went 2-0 down. They came alive in the last half hour though, and it took a stunning reflex save from Petr Cech to keep it at 2-1, the ball was within millimetres of crossing the line. Liverpool might regret their performance though, had they showed the same urgency for the rest of the game, it might well have been them lifting the trophy.
In the Premier League, Man City marched to an impressive 2-0 win at Newcastle, and its absolutely theirs to lose now with relegation threatened QPR to come at home. It looks like a new name will be on the trophy come Sunday afternoon, its been a fantastic season of twists and turns and Manchester United will certainly be regretting their failure to hold onto a 4-2 lead against Everton recently.
We’ll be analysing the weekend games later in the week, hoping to sign off the football season with a winner! Then it’s onto Euro 2012, our Euro 2012 section (above) is now live and will be updated as the tournament approaches.
3rd May, 12pm
We finished April with a small overall loss, having been a bit unlucky with the last selections of the month. We had a small punt on Stoke and Norwich, who were hosting Arsenal and Liverpool respectively. Stoke took the lead against Arsenal but failed to hold on, the game finished 1-1. In the other game, Liverpool made a mockery of the theory that Norwich is a difficult place to win, with Suarez netting a superb hattrick as they cruised to a 3-0 win.
We are right into the business end of the football season now, the next few weeks see the climax of the Premier League, plus the FA cup and Champions League finals. The first big match from this selection is the FA Cup final, this Saturday between Liverpool and Chelsea. It seems that both teams had their eye on it when they played earlier in the week, both of them losing at home in the league. Saturday they will both be back to full strength and it promises to be a decent game.
Before we look at the odds for the final, I’d like to run one of my betting techniques past you. I find it a very helpful exercise to try to work out what you think the odds for something should be before you actually look at them. Start by deciding who should be favourite, then try to decide by how much, and see if you can work this back to a possible price. It helps if you have an understanding of typical odds for all 3 possible outcomes, but if you want to simplify the process, you could start with the draw no bet market. I.e. you’d only need to come up with odds for each team to win. In a perfect book, if you thought the teams were absolutely evenly matched, the odds for each team would be even money, or 2 in decimal format.
So for the FA Cup final? Firstly we would look at the league positions and matches between the two sides this year, we have Chelsea in 6th (61 points) and Liverpool in 8th (49 points). However, they have only played once in the league this year, Liverpool winning 2-1 at Chelsea. They actually meet again next week, just a few days after the final!
Next, consider the history of matches between the two over the last few years. Going back 3 years we see that Liverpool have won all the last 4 matches, then Chelsea won a couple, then a draw, then Chelsea. Relatively even, but in more recent history Liverpool certainly have the edge.
Then have a look at current overall form, which shows (most recent first):
Liverpool – LWLWWDL
Chelsea – LWDDWWW
I’d probably discount the most recent result, because both teams rested players ahead of the cup final. Chelsea have the marginally better record, and when you look at the teams involved, you note that it includes the two matches with Barcelona in the Champions League.
Finally, consider the key personnel involved. For Chelsea, Torres has started to look like the player they paid £50 million for, and of course he will be fired up against his old club! Drogba is also firing in both the league and cup, plus the likes of Ramires and Mata are showing just why Chelsea brought them in. For Liverpool, Suarez is looking unplayable and Gerrard is back from injury.
What do we conclude from all this? For me, its extremely tight. I expect Chelsea to be marginal favourites, particularly due to their recent form. But, I also think that Liverpool have developed an effective way of playing Chelsea and this could count for a lot in a tight one-off cup final.
My guess for the DRAW NO BET market is this:
Liverpool 2.1
Chelsea 1.9
A quick check of the actual prices shows this:
Liverpool 2.25
Chelsea 1.8
I’m close, but the market is rating Chelsea a slightly better chance and Liverpool slightly worse. One final pointer here is a useful trick you can do with decimal odds. Divide the odds into 1 then multiply by 100 to get the implied percentage chance. E.g.
Liverpool (1/2.25) x 100 = 44.44%
Chelsea (1/1.8) x 100 = 55.56%
Remember that this is the DRAW NO BET market, so it is only taking into account the two possible wins.
To conclude this piece with a bet, for me this FA Cup final is the classic toss of a coin, anybodys game. I rate the teams closer to 50/50 than the market does, and that implies value in backing Liverpool, which is exactly what I’m going to do.
Saturday 5th May. 5:15pm. FA Cup final.
Liverpool to beat Chelsea in the DRAW NO BET market. £10 @ 2.25
Good luck, enjoy the game!