First trading preview of the new season, doesn't it seem a long time since Man Utd lifted yet another Premier League trophy back in May?
So much has changed since then as well, with the top 3 from last season all changing their managers for one reason or another. It certainly looks like being the closest title race for sometime with Man Utd seemingly being dragged back into the pack by the media & fan fuelled lack of confidence in David Moyes ability to guide the Champions to glory. Not to mentioned their abject failure in the transfer market so far and poor pre season results. However, I'm sure Utd will be there or thereabouts come April/May next year.
Just before we get into the full preview, I just wanted to let you know that I'm planning on trading fewer matches this season but increasing the number of bets I'm doing. The main reasons for this are; time, I've got two young sons and a full time job so time for trading is at a premium and in my experience, less is more in terms of trading. There's simply no need to trade every match, there's loads to choose from so being selective and putting more focussed time and effort into each one will only increase the probability of profitable trading sessions. Finally, you'll notice I won't trade or bet on any match with a newly promoted side playing in it. I simply don't know enough about the teams and tactics of the new sides and have no relevant historical data to produce my tissue prices from.
So, Swansea V Man Utd is the first game I'm trading and the first thing which stands out is the huge value available on the champions. It's clear that the betting world has decided that Man Utd without Sir Alex Ferguson, are simply there for the taking and so their price has done nothing but drift since the markets opened. While I wasn't keen on Moyes taking over, I refuse to write off the champions simply based on the change of manager but I'm glad the betting world has because for the first time in a long while, it looks like there'll be great value on Utd every time they play!
Tissue Price
Swansea at 5.17
Draw at 4.42
Man Utd at 1.72 current Betfair price at 2.06
Unders at 2.13
Overs at 1.88
As you can see above the value is all with Utd as explained and I'll certainly be looking to back them in a Pre Match Trade (PMT) when the teams are announced an hour before KO but based on last weeks community shield pre match movement and the old trading saying, 'The trend is your friend', I'm going to be ready to switch to the other side and lay Utd if the drfit trend proves to be too strong to reverse. My head is saying that it won't reverse but it is a very big price, surely big enough to tempt the sheep into backing Utd? Only time will tell and hopefully, I'll be ready to capitalise whatever happens. What we really need is Michu (Swansea's key market mover), to get injured during the warm up which would definietly result in a nice steam on Utd's price.
In terms of in play trading, there's some interesting stats which give us a useful guide into what's most likely to happen during the match.
Firstly, the home & away form against teams in the same grade and the Over 2.5 goals stats. Swansea have a W1 D4 L1 record in the last 6 at home against grade 1 (G1) teams and 0% of those last 6 games went Over 2.5 goals. Meanwhile Utd have a W4 D2 L0 record in the last 6 away against grade 3 (G3) teams, with only 33% going Over 2.5 goals. Clearly, these stats point to a low scoring match and either a draw or Utd win. However, it's worth noting that Swansea's home stats for Over 2.5 goals increase dramatically, to 63% of games going Over 2.5, when we look at their home form for the whole of last season. Utd's also increase to 52% for the season as a whole which, strongly suggests that Swansea play a more reserved game against the best sides. Obviously, they play a short passing, possession style game but it seems as though they don't attack as regularly or commit as many players to those attacks when playing the top teams. This theory is backed up by the fact that Swansea only managed to get 5 or more shots on target in just two of those six games. But, it's a game plan that has worked well for them recently as the record of just one loss in six illustrates.
The research tells me that this match is most likely to be low scoring which potentially rules out my TOOT strategy from this game but, as every trader knows we should be ready to adapt the plan during the match if it looks like the trends and stats we've researched aren't continuing in the game being played out infront of us. So, although I'll primarliy looking to do TD trading during this game, I am prepared to jump on just Part 2 of the TOOT strategy if the situation and prices are right.
The other set of stats I like to research are the time of goal stats. Again looking at the matches involving same grade teams and then overall as well. With these stats I brake the match down into 15min sections (the same as my trading sheet, you might have seen a recent previous post) because they correspond nicely with the strategies I use in play. A couple of things which are of interest to me in this match are that Utd's away games, both against the G3 sides and away games overall, had a lot of early goals in them.
There were 11 goals scored in the first 15mins of Utd's away games and a further 14 goals scored between 16 and 30mins. This trend was also prevalent in the last six away games against the G3 teams such as Swansea, with 7 of the 21 goals (33%) scored coming in the first 30mins of those matches. Swansea's goal times against G1 teams however, are heavily weighted towards the end of the matches, with 6 of the 9 goals coming after the 60th minute. With these mixed stats, it's harder to draw any firm conclusions but it would pay to be very careful when trying to trade the TD strat during the first 15mins of the match on Saturday because of Utd's tendency to score early. However, yet again the flexibility of a trader comes into play here because if we do see an early goal, it could really open the match up and we'll be able to profit using other strategies instead of the planned TD strat.
Finally, in terms of straight bets on this match Utd are clearly value at anything above 1.85 and although it's a tough away match to start the season, it'll pay in the long term if you're always backing the value bet. There's also a bit of value and logic in backing the HT draw at 2.20 or more and backing the 2nd half to be the highest scoring at 2.10 or more. Plus, because of the big price on Utd in the match odds market, other markets such as Asian Handicaps & Double Chance are also value despite still being short.
It's great to be back trading some real football again and as usual you can keep up to date with my trades and general ramblings via Twitter. Good luck this weekend and don't forget to tred carefully during these opening weeks of the season when we've got no real current form to go on, anything can and usually does happen.
Cheers,
@DarkDyson
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