Champions League Matchday 3

Better results last time out with Schalke and Napoli winning

03.10 – Lokomotiv Moscow v Schalke: Away win @2.4 Generally WIN +1.4 (0-1)

03.10 – Tottenham v Barcelona: Home win @3.5 with quite a few LOSE -1 (2-4)

03.10 – Napoli v Liverpool: Home win @3.5 with quite a few WIN +2.5 (1-0)

03.10 – FC Porto v Galatasaray: Away win @7.5 with quite a few LOSE -1 (1-0)

Summary: 3 wins from 8 / +0.525pts

Just 3 bets this time round but there were a couple of close ones in Barcelona and Shakhtar. Barcelona’s price has suffered as Messi is out and also there is the possibility that they both play out a draw here although they’d probably need to do the same in the next match for that to have any worth.

Dortmund v Atletico, Barcelona v Inter and PSG v Napoli are all big matches but the plum match is probably Manchester United v Juve. Based on how average United have been this year the Juventus price looks pretty interesting as they are one again crushing it i Italy.

23.10 – Hoffenheim v Lyon: Home win @2.0 Generally

24.10 – Club Brugge KV v Monaco: Away win @3.2 Generally

24.10 – Lokomotiv Moscow v FC Porto: Home win @4.33 with Several

Leading 2018/19 Champions League contenders

This season’s exciting Champions League group stage has reached a pivotal point and there are plenty of top European giants still battling hard to edge closer towards achieving the greatest feat available in club football.

All of the leading contenders and key names are still very much on track for outright supremacy this current campaign but there can only be one victor who gets their hands on that world famous trophy come next year.

So, here are the main contenders for this season’s Champions League crown after such a dramatic start to proceedings in Europe’s elite club competition.

Real Madrid

Los Blancos are the reigning and defending champions, after rallying to an incredible three consecutive European Cup crowns in recent years, and they are 10/1 with bet365 in the football betting to prevail again for a fourth straight season.

That monumental success came under former boss and club legend Zinedine Zidane though, and it’s now the turn of previous Spain international coach Julen Lopetegui to help guide Real Madrid to even more glory.

They are also without all-time club top scorer Cristiano Ronaldo, who left for Juventus during the summer transfer window, but they can still call on the likes of Gareth Bale, Isco, Karim Benzema and Toni Kroos to help battle for more honours throughout the season.

Manchester City

Josep Guardiola 0525 by Thomas Rodenbücher (CC BY 2.0)

Manchester City rallied to a dominant Premier League victory last season under the guidance of Spanish tactician Pep Guardiola, who has instilled a dynamic attacking approach at the Etihad.

The European Cup still manages to elude the Sky Blues, despite their domestic dominance in England’s top-flight division.

Will this finally be their season in the Champions League? They have plenty of star-studded talent capable of going all the way, that’s for sure.

Juventus

There’s one key component that makes Juventus worth backing during this current term in the Champions League and that’s the fact that they signed arguably the greatest player ever to feature in the competition. That being the capturing of all-time Champions league hitman Ronaldo, who sensationally arrived in Turin for a huge transfer sum.

Alongside the likes of Paulo Dybala and co, the Portuguese ace has enough quality around him to win the competition for a remarkable fourth term in a row.

PSG

Can French giants PSG finally end their long wait for European glory? They have long been known for their financial power, but they want to put that to bed and become regarded for their dominance on the pitch instead.

Brazilian star Neymar is always the top dog within their squad, but they also have the biggest young talent in world football in the form of 2018 World Cup winning France frontman Kylian Mbappe. Watch this space.

Barcelona

With a certain Lionel Messi still within their glittering attacking ranks, Barcelona can simply never be written off.

The Catalan club will have an even bigger incentive to prevail outright with the current holders being bitter rivals and La Liga opponents Real Madrid. This could well prove to be Barca’s season if they continue their fine form.

Over and Under Twitter Bets

With the Twitter Bets that we have been able to record prices from using www.football-data.co.uk there have been nearly 900 bets and the loss to the average price is 14.35 points. This does not seem to be very much and we have the feeling that to best prices we should be able to get into profit and as a result we will monitor this for the season.

This is only for the leagues where we can get prices for football-data.co.uk so is the following

Bel Jupiler, Eng Champ, Eng Conf ,Eng Lge 1, Eng Lge 2, Eng Prem, Fra Lig 1, Fra Lig 2,Fra Ligue 2, Ger Bund, Ger Bund 2, Grk Super, Ita Serie A, Ita Serie B, NL Eridvis, Por Super, Sco Champ, Sco Lge 1, Sco Lge 2, Scot Prem, Spa Primera, Spa Segunda, Tur Super

As there will be quite a lot of bets we will update at the end of each month. We started on Saturday as that was the first for this season as teams have now played enough games. Will be interesting to see if this can post a profit or not.

Champions League Matchday 2

The Liverpool v PSG tie was the highlight of the first round of matches and really lived up to the hype. Without playing in a competitive league how can PSG ever prepare to play in matches like these, especially against teams that aggressively press them.

In terms of the bets the late goal by Liverpool stopped that being a draw but the late comeback from Inter Milan made that one a winner so swings and roundabouts.

18.09 – Inter v Tottenham: Home win @2.625 Generally WIN +1.625 (2-1)

18.09 – Liverpool v Paris SG: Draw @3.5 Generally LOSE -1 (3-2)

18.09 – Schalke v FC Porto: Home win @2.4 Generally LOSE -1 (1-1)

19.09 – Valencia v Juventus: Home win @4.75 Generally LOSE -1 (0-2)

Summary: 1 win from 4 / -1.375pts

After playing Juventus Valencia now travel to Manchester and will need some sort of result to maintain hopes of qualifying. Manchester City need a win at Hoffenheim and were helped by the other game being a draw in round 1.

The big clashes in matchday 2 are Tottenham at home to Barcelona and Napoli at home to Liverpool. Barcelona are without Umtiti which is important for them as he has made a massive difference for them and helped Pique. Spurs need something from this and have shown they are capable of big wins after beating Real Madrid 3-1 last season.

The Napoli match is interesting as Serie A is starting to look stronger in Europe and Roma took a big step last year beating Barcelona. Napoli have had a tough start to the year and beaten Lazio, AC Milan and Fiorentina already. Italian teams have done well against English teams and this is probably the best value of the bets we have laid out this matchday.

03.10 – Lokomotiv Moscow v Schalke: Away win @2.4 Generally

03.10 – Tottenham v Barcelona: Home win @3.5 with quite a few

03.10 – Napoli v Liverpool: Home win @3.5 with quite a few

03.10 – FC Porto v Galatasaray: Away win @7.5 with quite a few

Stat Analysis 2017-18 season

With the new Premier League season underway, everyone is anxious to forecast where their favorite team will end up. Although it’s still early, many people are beginning to predict the final table. One of the best ways to do this is by using the soccer pythagorean theorem, as described here.

This model essentially uses goals scored and goals conceded to give a team an expected points per game. This can then be used to forecast how a team will fare over the rest of the season. In this article, we are going to go back to the 2017-18 EPL season to analyze the effectiveness of the formula.


In order to do this, we are going to retrospectively perform a mid-season prediction. Basically, we are going to take data from the first 19 games (half the season) of the Premier League, and use that to develop each team’s expected points per game. We will then use the expected points per game value, extrapolate it to the final 19 games of the season, and add that to the initial 19 games, to get a final prediction for the 38 game season.
(If you are curious as to how this whole process works, I suggest reading the previous articles, in which the overall method was outlined)
When this process was performed, I found that, on average, the expected points and final points differed by an average of 4.8 points. That means that this model was able to accurately predict the final standings for each Premier League team with an error of just 0.126 points per game.
In fact, 9 of the teams had expected points and actual points that differed by under 2 points at the end of the season. The model accurately predicted West Ham, Crystal Palace, and Newcastle to climb out of the relegation battle, and also predicted Stoke City’s late struggles.
In this study there were just 6 teams that had a prediction error of 6 points or higher. However, of those teams, 4 of them experienced managerial changes during the season. This would explain the unpredictability of their results, as new staff means new playing styles and new results. When these 3 teams are negated in the study, the average points disparity drops down to just 3.98 points over the course of the entire season.


So, what does this mean for this season? Well, once we get close to a reasonable enough sample size (roughly 10 games, I’d say), we’ll be able to accurately predict the fates of teams in leagues around the world. We’ll be able to judge which teams can stay at the top, which teams will have a late surge, and which teams will be fighting to stay up. It’s an exciting way to track what’s sure to be an exciting season.

Author: Nikhil Mehta