Etikett: chelsea

After Christmas bets

MartinBetting

I have had some time off during the Christmas holidays and therefore time to share a few bets. The analysis in Chelsea vs West Ham was a big success and I had quite a few readers on that post. On Twitter I have had weaker results. The over 2.75 bet in Wolves vs Brentford resulted in a half win, but Manchester City -2 (at home to Burnley) resulted in a disaster and over 2.75 in Tottenham – Manchester United could be seen as a fiasco after 0-0. However, United should have scored at least once in the first half, and if that had happened the game would probably opened up.

Well, it is time for a few new betting suggestions from England and Australia! Read and enjoy.

Bet 1: Derby County – Leeds United: Derby -1 at 1.92

Derby County have one of the stronger teams in the Championship and after a very disappointing away loss to tomorrow night’s opponents (in late November, Leeds got 2-0 at home and Derby failed to get a single shot on target). Since then, Derby have managed to get things together again. They have convincing wins at home to Brighton (3-0) and away to Birmingham on Boxing Day (4-0), an unfortunate 2-2 draw against Norwich, and a 2-0 defeat away to top contenders Middlesbrough.

Leeds United, on the other hand, have only managed to obtain one point in the four games after their win against Derby. With all the problems in and around the club I can’t see them get anything out of the game tomorrow night. Brazilian Adryan is believed to return to the starting eleven after been ruled out on boxing day.

I cannot see anything else than an easy home win here and have placed a -1 Asian Handicap bet on Derby. I got 1.92 at MarathonBet, but if you don’t have an account there (or perhaps is limited) I recommend 1.53 for the Derby -0.5 bet at Bet365 and/or 1.86 for a Derby -1 bet at Pinnacle Sports.

Bet 2: Ipswich Town – Charlton Athletic: Ipswich -1 at 2.10

Ipswich Town are doing extremely well at the moment. They sit second in the table and they are the best home team in the league (W8-D2-L1). They have four wins in their last five (including away to Charlton) and come from an impressive 4-2 win away to Brentford and a 2-0 victory at home to Middlesbrough.

Charlton Athletic are not bad. In their last game they got 1-1 at home to Cardiff, despite being one man down for about an hour. Away from home they have drawn six of eleven games (W2-D6-L3), and are hard to beat. However, the Ipswich team is showing a lot of character and I am going for the tough -1 Asian Handicap line. Read a preview here.

I got 2.10 from MarathonBet for the Asian Handicap -1 bet. You can get 1.60 for the straight home win at Bet365 and 2.02 for the -1 line. I believe that this offer some value.

Bet 3: Western Sydney Wanderers – Central Coast Mariners: Sydney -0.75 at 2.27

bet_tomi_juric
Tomi Juric

During the Christmas holidays I have watched some football from Australia. Western Sydney Wanderers have not been able to combine the Asian Champions League (who they surprisingly won!), the FIFA Club World Cup and league football. Now they have time to focus on the league and they really need to start winning games after only three points in ten games. I saw their last loss away to Wellington Phoenix (1-0), and in that game they played well and were extremely unlucky to get nothing out (read and watch highlights here). Now they face a much weaker team and I believe that they will start a winning streak. It could be worthy checking the starting line ups. Star striker Tomi Juric is reported to leave the club, and he is important for Western Sydney.

Central Coast Mariners have eight points in twelve games (W1-D5-L6) and away from home they have four drawn games and two losses in six games. In their last encounter they got a 3-3 draw at home to Brisbane Roar and did not impress defensively. I believe that they hold much less quality than Sydney Wanderers and that the price is too much influenced by Sydney’s awful league stats.

I have taken Sydney -0.75 at 2.27 (Pinnacle Sports). The current price is 2.30 and other bookies offer prices around 2.20-2.25.

Bet 4: West Ham United – West Bromwich Albion: West Ham -0.75 at 2.14

West Ham United are doing extremely well and after two tough games against Chelsea and Arsenal I strongly believe that will get a victory again against a rather weak West Bromwich Albion.

I got 2.14 for the -0.75 Asian Handicap bet (Pinnacle Sports). The current price is 2.11 and I think that prices above 2.05 are worth to take.

bet_west_ham_simpsons

Chelsea – West Ham: Betting with a look at the data

MartinBetting

It is time for a rare comeback, a blog post about looking at the data with a betting purpose. The early Boxing Day game is a London derby between two teams that have impressed heavily so far. Chelsea currently top the table and they will face West Ham, who sit nicely in fourth position at the moment.

Chelsea at home

Chelsea FC have won almost everything this season and they look unbeatable, especially at Stamford Bridge. Now they will be tested a bit with a game against high-flying West Ham United. Here are some of the data in Chelsea’s home games so far in the 2014/2015 season of Premier League.

Data from Chelsea’s home games so far in Premier League. Data are taken from liveresultat.se.

Chelsea have eight wins in eight home games and with a goal difference of two in six of them. With only three conceded goals a first guess could be that the opponents didn’t have much of the ball at all and that they haven’t been able to create any chances. This is not completely true. In four games the away teams have managed to create ten or more chances (I think that liveresultat.se mark all shots – on target/off target/blocked – as chances) and in two games the away teams (Arsenal and Tottenham) have had more possession of the ball than Chelsea. What is much more striking is the Shots on target column. The away teams have only had eleven shots on targets in the eight games, making an average of 1.375 shots on target per game! The ’shoots on taget’-metric is actually used by many football scientists and data bloggers to model and predict football goal scoring results. Take a look at this very interesting blog.

Looking at Chelsea’s data alone a home win looks very possible and the prices are also low for a Chelsea victory. At the moment the bookies pay around 1.33 for the home win and around 2.00 for Chelsea at the -1.5 Asian Handicap line (at the moment Bet365 is best with 2.02).

West Ham away

West Ham have three wins, three drawn games, and two losses away from home so far in the 2014/2015 season. Moreover, they have scored (and conceded) in all eight games.

westham_away_2014_12_26The wins have come against teams that are expected to finish in the lower regions of the table, the drawn games against teams expected to finish mid-table, and the losses against expected top six/seven-teams. Actually, West Ham have had extremely hard to get anything out of away games to elite teams lately. Last season West Ham only managed to beat Tottenham of the seven top clubs. They also got a 0-0 draw away to Chelsea, but according to the stats there seems to have been some luck involved there.

westham_away_2013_2014It is perhaps not fair to use stats from last season for West Ham. They seem to be another team now, but at the same time, the only losses this season have come to Manchester United and Everton. Is West Ham’s decent away record this season mostly thanks to the schedule? Will they start losing now when they will visit better teams?

Prediction: Chelsea and under

Despite West Ham’s fantastic start of the season I see value in Chelsea here. I don’t believe that Chelsea will allow West Ham to create high quality chances. I am a bit scared of the 1-0 and 2-1 victories however and I am taking the lower line, Chelsea -1 (AH) at 1.50.

West Ham’s stats away from home have affected the goal line prices. At the moment, under 3.0 goals (Asian line) can be taken at 1.88 and I take a small one on that. Chelsea have only scored more than three goals in one of the eight home games in Premier League and as long as West Ham doesn’t score, under 3.0 seems to posses value.

It could be a good idea to bet on 2-0 (Bet365 offers 7.50 at the moment and the prices differ between 5.30 and 8.00). I stick to Chelsea -1 and under 3.0 though.

Bet 1: Chelsea -1 at 1.50 (Pinnacle Sports). Medium wager.

Bet 2: Under 3.0 goals at 1.88 (Pinnacle Sports). Small wager.

Let’s hope that John Terry can help us to get 2-0 (or otherwise 1-0 or 3-0) for Chelsea.

 

Stryktipset 2014-12-13: Streckprocent vs sannolikhet

MartinStryktipset

Jag har väldigt ont om tid för bloggeriet just nu, men här kommer streckfördelningen och sannolikhetsfördelningen för Stryktipset vecka 50. Sannolikhetsberäkningarna baseras på medeloddsen från flera spelbolag på oddsportal.com.

Tips 1: Streck vs sannolikhet på Stryktipset för samtliga omgångar 2017.

Tips 2: Beskrivning av hur beräkna utdelning på Stryktipset.

Tips 3: Rättningsmall för Stryktipset plus V75, V86, V64 och V65.

I bilden nedan finns streckfördelningen samt sannolikheten i respektive match. För att räkna ut sannolikheten för respektive tecken i vald match plockar jag medeloddsen från oddsportal som jag sedan konverterar till sannolikhet, se t.ex. detta inlägg för hur.

Spontant ser det ut som att det finns värde i att gå emot Chelsea och Manchester City, men jag tror helt enkelt de bara vinner och spikar. Supervärdet i Fulham hugger jag dock.

stryktipset_20141213Lycka till!

Kerry Dixon: Players I remember #1

MartinPlayers I remember

In July 1990 Chelsea FC prepared for the new season with a summer camp in Falkenberg, Sweden. I was ten years of age at the time and my father was some kind of organiser during their stay here. My family stayed close to the team and players like Kerry Dixon, Andy Townsend, Graeme Le Saux, and Dennis Wise, who had joined the team from Wimbledon for a club record fee of £1.6 million.

Kerry Dixon was the prolific goal scorer at the club and for me and my younger brother – who actually turned 9 the exact same day as Dixon turned 29, which (if I remember things correctly) was celebrated by the team with a cake for both of them – Dixon was a true hero. Even though I tried to acclaim his striking partner Gordon Durie simply since I got his Gatorade water bottle after a practise (my brother got Dixon’s of course)…

Kerry Dixon was born in Luton in 1961 and was an apprentice at Tottenham Hotspur. After short spells with Chesham United and Dunstable he joined Reading in 1980 and scored 51 league goals in 116 appearances in the third division. Before the 1983-84 season Chelsea’s chairman Ken Bates was willing to pay £150,000 for him but Reading wanted another 25,000 if he ever got two England caps during his stay at Chelsea. Bates needed a night deliberating, but finally decided to meet Reading’s requirements. He was desperate to improve the Chelsea squad after they almost relegated to the third division in the previous season.

kerry_dixon_3

That extra £25,000 was well spent. Kerry Dixon’s pace, heading ability, and two good feet made an instant impact and got him two goals in his debut in a 5-0 victory against Derby County. After assistance from hard working strike partner David Speedie and quality crosses from Pat Nevin, Dixon ended with 34 goals in his first season at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea turned things around and were promoted to Division One one year after risking being relegated to Division 3. And equally important, Chelsea had finally found a worthy replacement for Peter Osgood, the 60’s and 70’s icon in number nine.

Kerry Dixon stayed with the Blues for a decade and after some ups and downs, both for Dixon and Chelsea, he moved to Southampton 1992 after getting 193 goals in 440 appearances. That made him Chelsea’s second-highest goalscorer of all time (now moved down to third after Frank Lampard has taken the first spot with 211 goals).

After a bad season with the Saints he moved to his home town club Luton Town FC and actually entered a game together with Chelsea one last time. In a 1994 Wembley FA Cup semi-final Luton faced Chelsea and the Chelsea fans got a final chance to acknowledge a true club legend. At the end of the game “There’s only one Kerry Dixon” was shouted all over Wembley.

After his playing career Kerry Dixon has tried managing and has been involved in Chelsea TV, but sadly risks getting the sack after being arrested on suspicion of dealing cocaine.

I plan to regularly write about my former heroes. For the blog posts so far, see here. Kerry Dixon is the first player I have written about.