FoG

#EPL #TopScorer some movement on the top scorer. #Aguero starting at 3/1 back in June/July. Now at 6/1!! pic.twitter.com/ZvsKMBeqnI — FoG (@davidheaney1978) August 15, 2014 So you read my tweet back in August about Aguero and decided to back him for top scorer at what really was an incredible 6/1 offer.  You backed him on Paddy Power who were offering a   € 2 free bet every time your player scores.  Now you are getting all these   € 2  free bets and don't know what to do with them. The important thing to realise is that the terms of the offer mean that you only get the winnings from the bet, the free stake is not returned.   So there is absolutely no risk, which is the main reason why you would normally stay away from the long shots ie you lose  € 2  euro each time until the underdog eventually comes in and then you win relatively big.  Normally this would all balance out but the free bet rules bring in a new dynamic to our reasoning! Odds Implied Probability if Bookie

Colossus Bet   offer a variety of Pools competitions where you predict the scores or outcomes of a number of matches.  The correct predictions win or share the pool.   I previously developed a strategy and wrote an article on it   here . My strategy has been performing okay on the headline  € 10,000,000 Jackpot.  I have tracked my predictions against the experts predictions as  published  on the Colossus Blog .  You will find a record of my predictions on twitter @FoG_BLoG.    The strength of my simple predictions is that it gives you more value for money, often recording the same number or more correct predictions than the experts but for a tiny fraction of the cost.  For example the total cost of Michael Owen's multi-line predictions last week was  € 432.  My single line prediction set me back  € 2. The previous three weeks Colossus Bets have gone down like this: As you can see, my FoG single line predictions have been performing on a par and even on

PDO was a concept developed in Hockey and recently brought over to soccer analysis.  Simply it is a teams shots scored percentage plus their shots saved percentage.  This figure is usually multiplied by 1000 just for presentation, to remove decimal places.  (goals scored/shots on target + (1 -  goals conceded /shots on target faced)) * 1000 A high PDO means that you are either scoring a high proportion of your chances or stopping a high proportion of your opponents chances or both.  Either way a high score indicates you are performing well.  What the analytics people find interestesting about the PDO is that even the best teams cannot sustain a high PDO.  Studies show that short term peaks in PDO level out over a season.  "Normal" values of PDO range from about 980 to 1020 according to the research .  Values outside this range usually indicate that a team is over performing (or lucky) and their PDO is fully expected to regress towards the mean in the long term. 

Dundalk host Cork City on the last game of the season in a classic game of Attack vs Defense.  Nobody has scored more goals than Dundalk (71), but Cork have the meanest defense (only 23 goals conceded this season). Dundalk have scored 20 goals more than Cork City this term, which might lead you to imagine that Dundalk are better finishers.  In fact both teams goals per shot conversion rate is very similar.  Both sets of forwards are doing an equally good job at finishing.  The key stat, however, in Dundalk's favour is the huge amount of shots that they create per match.  They have close to 14 shots per game which dwarfs Cork who don't even reach double digits on average.   Dundalk's creativity has been their main strength this season. Attacking Stats Dundalk vs Cork Chart:  Attacking stats for Cork vs Dundalk Looking further behind the stats - you see nothing special about the Cork team at first.  Their average shots created per games is actually on a par with

There is a mathematical probability distribution called the Poisson distribution.  It turns out that the Poisson model can be successful at predicting arrival rates, for example the number of cars arriving per red light cycle, number of customers arriving at a store per hour, number of claims received at an insurance company per day or number of goals scored by a football team per match .  All you need to know is the average, and from that you can calculate the probability. The formula has been around for centuries and is tried and tested.  Even the bookie's place some weight on it (you can read about Pinnacle Sports version of the Poisson here ). There is some significance in the Dundalk vs Cork City match in Oriel Park this Friday.  Lets calculate the home win/draw/away win probabilities for that match. The trick is in finding the average home goals and away goals to use in the formula.  We know that home field advantage plays a big part in football.  So for our averages w

The final round of games in The Airtricity League are penned in for Fri 24th Oct.  It looks like a toss of a coin for top spot.  Cork City are 1 point clear, but Dundalk have home advantage as the top two teams meet on the last day.  There is excitement like this in no other league in Europe that I am aware of.   With seven months  remaining in the "better" leagues in Europe, the only excitement left is to see if Bayern (already 1/20 odds on favourite) will be crowned champions before Easter, or before Christmas.  Or whether Barca/Messi will win La Liga this season over Real/Ronaldo.   In the League of Ireland the tension is maintained throughout the season and right up to the final day.    Chart: Predictability based on Outright Odds from Paddypower  (19 Oct 2014) English Premier League followers had a treat in 2011/12 when Man City pipped Man Utd on goal difference on the last day.  However that was the exception to the rule, Man Utd won the previous and next sea

There is no doubting that Chelsea have made a great start to the Premiership this season, and no doubting the quality of their squad or the credentials of their manager.  There is reason to be cautious though. Here are seven warnings (from recent history) that Chelsea may be wise to heed. 2013/14 Arsenal top after 7 games only finished in 4th, a massive 34 points behind Man City who didn't even figure in the top 4 after 7 matches.  Chelsea fans will probably point out that Arsenal had a relatively easy start to the season last year.  They played Villa (H), Fulham (A), Spurs (H), Sunderland (A), Stoke (H), Swansea (A) and West Brom (A).  So far this season Chelsea have already met their main rivals Man City (A) and Arsenal (H). 2012/13 Chelsea themselves threw away an early lead in this 2012/13.  Top after 7 games and ended in a disappointing third.  6 wins  (including an away win against Arsenal)  and 1 draw in their first 7 games  was not enough to set up a Cham

Despite being at the wrong end of some of the biggest upsets in this round of international qualifiers Germany and Netherlands are still tipped (by the bookies) to top their respective qualifying groups with ease and so should comfortably qualify for Euro 2016. Moldova's draw with Russia was 9/1, you could have had 8/1 for Slovakia to beat Spain.  Ireland, Poland, N. Ireland, Iceland and Liechtenstein pulled off the greatest upsets in this round of Euro Qualifiers. For Ireland the draw against Germany was incredible but its only 1 point.  The games against Scotland and Poland will be so much more important as a win or lose in these games could cause a 6 point swing for or against. So far England, Belgium and Italy are showing the most consistency of the group favourites.  Indeed England are the qualification experts - they haven't lost a qualifying match for the World Cup or Euro since 10 Oct 2009. Although Spain and Netherlands will probably safely qualify for th

The competition this evening wasn't if we could beat Gibraltar (this was a 1/100 foregone conclusion according to the bookies), the competition here was if we could beat Poland's score of 7-0 against the group minnows.  4-0 at 9/2 was the most likely outcome at the bookies.  The 7-0 target was a little longer at 17/2.  In the end Ireland easily made the 7-0 with enough to spare.  After the 7th goal on 56 minutes they had the luxury of withdrawing a number of first team players, perhaps with an eye to the midweek match with Germany. The result did little for Ireland's chances for qualification for Euro 2016.  A win was expected and needed.  However results elsewhere hurt our chances especially with Poland beating Germany. Both the top team and the second team qualify for the Euro 2016.  The betting trend shows that Ireland lost ground today on the likes of Poland for top spot and presumably runner up spot - but only slightly.  Ireland's odds to qualify lengthened fro

Recently I stumbled across a nice simple little graphic that categorises a teams attacking effectiveness.  The original chart is here .  It relates to the English Premier League and is, unfortunately, a little out of date. It did get me think about applying the same analysis to the Airtricity League here in Ireland.  The shot data I found on ie.soccerway.com .  Some match data was missing and those matches are ignored in the analysis - but Soccerway does have match data recorded for the vast majority of the matches.  So the data backing up the chart is fairly complete. Clearly football is not all about attacking and this is evident when you look at St. Pats stats versus Cork City's stats.  Cork City are 4 pts clear of St. Pats and joint top of the table with Dundalk (although Dundalk have a game in hand).  St Pats seem to be generating more chances and also making better use of them.  Cork City must be doing something special defensively.  That's not to say that Cork