FoG

Initially Pats were the bookie's outright favourite but their odds continued to lengthen in the run up to the season kickoff, to the point that I personally thought they were good value.  Knowing that they had Dundalk and Shamrock Rovers away in their first 3 matches and the potential for a slip up I opted to wait and  see if their odds would lengthen  even more. And they did.  They have gone from 5/2 to 7/2 which gives you an extra 40% back on your stake. Tough start to the season sees early favourites Pats drop out of favour with the bookies So what to think about that.  Well yes it was what I was hoping for but the degree at which they struggled against their two main rivals has me worried.  Against each of Dundalk and Rovers they only managed to create one shot on target.  Meanwhile Dundalk created 11 shots on target against them on the way to scoring 3 unanswered goals. On the other hand, the League of Ireland is traditionally very open...

At the weekend Kane catapulted himself to joint favourite for Top Scorer in the Premier League. Before the end of January one popular bookmaker was not even quoting odds for the Spurs striker. Back to back braces (against West Brom and Arsenal) at the end of January finally made them take notice and his chances have been slowly on the rise until the weekend when they went into the stratosphere.  His hat-trick at the weekend was against relegation bound Leicester and the other sharp rise shown in the chart below was courtesy of a double against basement side QPR on 6th March. Probability based on the odds trends since late Jan showing the rise of Harry Kane as a contender for the Premier League golden boot award His chances of taking the golden boot have also been helped by the fact that Costa and Aguero are both going through something of a dry spell - for example the Argentine hasn't scored a goal in the Premier League since 21st of Feb. Costa and Kane are now tied o...

The last time before now that I was in any way invested in Sergio Aguero was when I had picked him for my fantasy football team in 2012/13.  He got injured on the first day of the season that time!   Now I am invested in him again after taking up Paddy Power on their top scorer promotion.  I have  € 20 on him at 6/1.  I have been collecting free  € 2 bets each time he scores and so far have made back  € 13.83 of the initial  € 20 on the winnings from these free bets.  But when Saturday came and news trickled in about his injury all those feelings from my failed fantasy team episode came rushing back. Paddy Power were quick to take down the market for top goal scorer while rumours and speculation played out about the extent of the injury.  They have finally put the market back up today (3 days later) and to my surprise the value of my investment has not fallen all that far.   EPL Top Scorer Betting Trend I am certainl...

The short list for the Ballon D'Or is to be announced on Dec 1.  The 23 nominees will be whittled down to 3.  It looks like it will be Ronaldo and Messi and then one of Muller, Neymar and Rodriguez on the short list.   Perhaps Rodriguez is being considered because he was snubbed for the WC2014 player of the tournament award where he scored in every match, was awarded the goal of the tournament and the Golden Boot for top scorer.  Apart from the World Cup though, he wasn't really a stand out player when the full year is taken into account and in my opinion probably shouldn't be in the reckoning here. Take a look at the official criteria here . The award is for  achievements during the period 30 November 2013 to 21 November 2014 inclusive and takes into account on and off the pitch activity (Art 2 & 3).  I suspect that the jury (voted on by players, coaches and media) won't be pulling out the calendars and checking who scored what and when.  ...