Basic Strategy & Approach

No picks this evening. I thought it would be a good opportunity to give a bit more insight into some of the methodology I use in identifying what is more likely to happen in a specific game and how this leads to the value picks.

Last night's Stoke vs Newcastle match was an ideal example for the approach that I take. It is through a combination of Quantitative (aka statistical data) and Qualitative (aka game strategy, theory and insight) research that I derive a tissue for said market (we will cover this in greater detail in later posts) and identify value.

It may transpire that the outcome i personally feel to be more likely is actually priced about right (or shorter). This will mean no bet as there no effective value.

To go back to last night's match, let us use the Over/Under 2.5 Goals market as the example.

We will start, as you always should, by analysing the favourites. The basic statistics for Stoke and their home form were as follows - only five goals conceded in their last ten league home games, five clean sheets and unbeaten at home this season.

The conclusion from using the basic statistics alone is that they are hard to break down and are unlikely to concede many goals. Furthermore, they have yet to score greater than two goals in a league game this season. Therefore, the stats suggest a low scoring game from a Stoke perspective.

Coincedentally, this perception seemed to be the general consensus on all of the betting forums I viewed leading upto the game.

If we turn our focus to Newcastle, they had kept 4 clean sheets in the league prior to the game and themselves, had only scored over two goals in a league game once, against lowly Blackburn. Although still unbeaten, they had fought out some low scoring draws and grinded some one goal margin victories.

Now, we must look beneath the statistics and see what was happening within each squad.

Stoke have struggled every week that they have played both a midweek and a weekend game. Recently suffering a 4-0 defeat to Sunderland. This type of sympton is typical of a team playing their first season in Europe and adapting to additional fixtures and travel.

Couple that with the improving confidence of an unbeaten Newcastle with a midfield that matched, if not bettered Spurs when they recently met, providing ammunition to the improving Demba Ba, led me to suggest that this game could equally if not moreso, be an "Overs" result than an "Unders" if Newcastle were able to get on top. 

If you can begin to take your analysis to a second/third or even fourth dimension, this will separate you from the average punter who takes the fixture at face value from basic knowledge and punts accordingly.

My tissue had the market at Even money both sides because you cannot completely disregard the statistics. I would have wanted slightly bigger than the 11/10 that was about for the overs, but I would never be placing or trading the unders at 4/6 in a match that had the dynamics I outlined.