As the Premier League and the NFL both move on to the business end of the season, I thought I'd take a look at how this season’s long-term positions have been getting on and, more importantly, what to do with them from now:

1) ASTON VILLA POINTS – BOUGHT AT 56.5, CURRENTLY 63.5-65

Except perhaps for their cross-city rivals Birmingham, Aston Villa are probably the success story of the season. They top the Racing Post’s table of the most profitable teams for punters to back this year and buyers of their points are, I can assure you, pretty pleased with them too. The current total stands on 35 after 20 games: they actually reached this two games ago, but have since suffered defeats to Arsenal (deserved) and Liverpool (totally undeserved). To close out now is in effect selling at 28.5 for their final 18 games, which sounds reasonable enough to me. The smallness of Villa’s squad is well-documented, and fixture congestion could become a real issue, with a postponed two-legged Carling Cup semi-final still to come, and a decent FA Cup run looking very possible. So I'll take the 7 point profit and a pat on the back!

2) MAN CITY POINTS – SOLD AT 65.5, CURRENTLY 68.75-70.25

Looking back, this was an example of having the right idea but failing to execute it correctly. Man City this season have been everything I anticipated: inconsistent and unpredictable, yet occasionally inspired. Hughes was found to be as out of his depth as I always thought he was and ended up losing his job. Yet a points total of 35 from 19 games (the same points as Villa, incidentally) is a decent enough return and, in hindsight, maybe 65.5 was too low a price to be selling at. City’s squad is still scarily talented and despite the question marks over Mancini’s pedigree in England – and a potentially damaging January while the African Nations Cup takes place – I still think they’ll reach another 35 points from their next 19 games. I’m leaning towards closing out of this too for a 4.75 point loss.

3) BURNLEY POINTS – BOUGHT AT 32, CURRENTLY 33-34.5

The departure of Owen Coyle is a huge blow to Burnley, there is no point denying it and anyone who’s backed them to stay up might be starting to panic a little. Luckily I only bought their points, which are on 20 after 20 games. I suppose I could take the one point profit here and now, but is there really any point in paying a 1.5 point spread for it? Burnley’s points will surely make up somewhere between 30 and 40. I’ll let it ride and hope for the best.

And over to the NFL:

4) NEW ORLEANS SUPER BOWL INDEX – SOLD AT 50, CURRENTLY 54-57

Despite being offside, this is in many ways the bet I’m most happy with. I recommended selling the Saints after Week 6 when they stood undefeated at 6-0. Since then, they have won 7 more games and were in all probability a narrow defeat to the Dallas Cowboys away from going through the season unbeaten. They’ve claimed the #1 seed in the NFC and are almost certainly the strongest team in their conference, if not in the whole NFL. And yet despite all of this, they are still only trading 4 points higher than what I sold at. This feels like a result in itself, but I see no reason to get cold feet now. The Saints appear to be imploding, their once-potent offence is struggling and their overperforming defence is now riddled with injuries. Unfortunately the sell can’t make up any lower than 33 any more, but frankly I can’t see the Saints in the Super Bowl at the moment, so it shouldn’t make up any higher than 50.

5) BALTIMORE RAVENS SUPER BOWL INDEX – BOUGHT AT 18, CURRENTLY 28-31

And from the slightly offside to the very onside. The Ravens snuck into the playoffs ahead of Pittsburgh, meaning that even if they lose their wildcard game versus the Patriot, they will still make up 20 at worst. However, as number 5 seeds, they are almost guaranteed to play every game on the road, starting off with an intimidating trip to New England on Sunday. And if they win that, it’s a trip to either the Colts or the Chargers. Not great news for a team who, despite their late winning streak, haven’t come together this season fully as I was hoping and, frankly, look a little average. I will be looking at a close at 28 and the banking of another 8 points.

JW

This weekend represented the most important date in the sports calendar, the pinnacle of the professional where champions are crowned and the unworthy vanquished.

It was the Davis Cup Final, my favourite tennis weekend of the year, and something which 99.9% of the country could not care less about. But then, as the old adage goes, wouldn’t it be a boring world if everyone liked the same thing? We all have our favourites, our eccentricities and obsessions and it just so happens that mine is an oft-overlooked team tennis competition.

Despite my loyalty to the Dwight Davis creation, I can understand why it leaves others cold. For a start, Great Britain are hopeless, having lost to minnows Poland and Ukraine in the last year alone. Many argue that tennis, this most individual of sports, just isn’t suited to a team format like the Davis Cup. The competition itself has been pretty roughly treated by the schedulers in recent years, with the quarter and semi-finals due to take place immediately after Wimbledon and the US Open, when the world’s best are at their most fatigued.

This might explain the presence of this year’s two finalists. The hosts were Spain, defending champions and undoubtedly the strongest squad in the competition. The four players selected for the final were Rafael Nadal, Fernando Verdasco, David Ferrer and Feliciano Lopez, but with an astonishing 12 Spaniards in the ATP Top 100, captain Albert Costa really was spoilt for choice.

The contrast with their opponents, the Czech Republic, was stark. The Czech team relied heavily on their pair of talismen, Radek Stepanek and Tomas Berdych. Both are ranked within the world’s Top 20 but, perhaps crucially, neither had made much of an impression in this year’s Grand Slams. Instead, playing together in the Davis Cup, they had created the sensation of the year. Star-studded nations including France, Argentina and Croatia fell to the unstoppable Berd-Step duo. There had been some memorable matches on the way, not least Stepanek’s six-hour, 16-14-in-the-fifth epic against Ivo Karlovic.in the semi-final away in Croatia, while the pair also excelled as a doubles team, unbeaten in eight rubbers.

From a betting perspective, I had been all over the Czech Republic since the quarter-final stage and was sitting pretty with an 16/1 each-way shot that had already placed. Unfortunately, I had also being laying the bejesus out of Spain, mainly banking on Rafael Nadal’s creaking knees ruling him out of the final (they didn’t). Needless to say, I had been laying them at much larger prices than the five-to-one-on (1.2) available just before the final! So a Spain win was very bad, a Czech win very good and seeing as I still made the Czechs a decent bet at market price, I couldn’t even talk myself into laying off some of my not-inconsiderable liability on Spain.

The final itself will surely be remembered for the extraordinary performance of Nadal, whose recent underwhelming form had been the main talking point in men’s tennis. He started the opening singles rubber versus Berdych with a 25:0 index of 19.5- 21 – extraordinary when you consider that the man had been practically unbeatable in best-of-five-sets clay court tennis up until his defeat to Robin Soderling at Roland Garros this year. But then people – myself included – were questioning whether Nadal would ever obtain that level of dominance again - and even giving serious thought to the idea that a lifelong underachiever like Tomas Berdych could defeat the man, away in Barcelona of all places.

The pipedream last until 5-5 in the first set, when at 0-30 down, Nadal produced an astonishing backhand down-the-line that seemed to spark him into life. Gone was tentative Rafa with his weak ground-strokes dropping short, replaced by clay-court warrior that dazzled us all on his way to four successive French Open crowns. He peeled off an astonishing 13 successive games to wipe the floor with Berdych, eventually triumphing 7-5 6-2 6-0 and handing the Spanish the early initiative.

Stepanek was fancied to put up a greater fight against the inconsistent David Ferrer, but contrived to waste a two-sets-to-love lead, falling 8-6 in the fifth. This was one of the great Davis Cup rubbers, with a fervent home crowd propelling their man to victory in spite of some inspired play from his valiant opponent. As much as I would have enjoyed to sit back as a neutral and admire Ferrer’s magnificent comeback, my wallet failed to share this enthusiasm.

Stepanek’s defeat left the Czech Republic with a mountain to climb. Instead, Berd-Step rather meekly surrended to a straight-sets defeat in the doubles and that was all she wrote for this year’s Davis Cup, and indeed the tennis season as a whole. Spain successfully defended their title, but trouble lies ahead, with a first-round tie next year against Roger Federer’s Switzerland. For us Davis Cup nuts, the fun never ends.

JW

Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it. ~Salvador Dali

As someone who struggles with the most basic of physical tasks, the prospect of truly mastering a sport could barely seem further away. But where I’d happily settle for being vaguely competitive in anything, there exist a few professional sportsmen for whom just being above-average is unacceptable, for perfection is their goal. Think of the greatest moments in the careers of the greatest athletes in recent times: the Barbarians’ famous try vs. the All Blacks in 1973, Maradona’s second goal against England in 1986, or Nadal’s 6-1 6-3 6-0 demolition of Federer in last year’s French Open – and it is hard to dispel the notion that the protagonists have, at least for the briefest of moments, achieved sporting perfection.

Yet the very fact that we consider these individual moments to be career-defining illustrates the transient nature of sport. The Barbarians are, by their very nature, a transient, evolving outfit. Maradona’s public fall from grace in the 1990s left him long, long way from perfection, while Nadal has recently returned from a serious injury barely resembling a top 10 player. So in pursuit of true, as opposed to momentary greatness, we need to look for those who have reached perfection and sustained it. Sustained perfection might include, say, unprecedented dominance in one’s sport for 15 years. Or being a 12-time World Champion. Or not just destroying your competitors on a regular basis, but constantly improving while doing so. Thus I present to you the only sportsman to ever really sustain perfection, Phil ‘the Power’ Taylor.

(If we could just leave aside the inevitable grumbling that fat, sweating men throwing pointy things at a cork board isn’t a real sport and carry on with the eulogy…)

Even by Taylor’s standards, his performance at this year’s Grand Slam of Darts was extraordinary. The tournament is in many ways a more gruelling test than the World Championships. It consists of the best players from both professional codes (the PDC and BDO) and, after a challenging short-format round-robin stage where anyone can, and does, beat anyone else, the tournament evolves into best of 31 legs match-play, with the semis and final held within hours of each other on the Sunday night. In short, the winner truly merits the victory.

This year’s winner, for the third straight year since the tournament’s inauguration, was of course Phil Taylor. This much raised little surprise: Taylor now holds all the TV majors (not including the Premier League) for the first time in darts history. It was the manner of the victory that was most arresting. Taylor won his four knockout stage matches 10-4, 16-7, 16-6 and 16-2. The third of those was against Raymond van Barneveld, the only player to ever suggest that he can remotely live with Taylor’s unbelievable high standards; the fourth to Scott Waites, the strongest candidate offered by the BDO. And yet Taylor just gets better and better. His three-dart average comfortably exceeded 100 in all of the matches. For any other players, hitting three figures in a long-format match would be a phenomenal achievement; with Taylor, it is merely par for the course.

The match against van Barneveld was in turn both awe-inspiring and thoroughly dispiriting. Awe-inspiring in the way that Taylor has comprehensively pulled away from a man who was once his greatest rival, but is now merely a bit-part player in Taylor’s rewriting of the history books. Taylor-Barney clashes used to be something to savour, but the Dutchman evidently understands as well as the rest of us that no mere mortal can live with Phil Taylor. You can see it in van Barneveld’s demeanour now the moment Taylor takes a leg. Whatever kryptonite Barney once possessed is powerless; however well he plays himself, Taylor will always find a way to get the better of him.

And this is where, for fans of darts, the situation becomes depressing. It’s not like the other players aren’t improving themselves: by every discernible measure (3-dart average, number of 180s etc.) the opposition are getting considerably better year on year. The likes of van Barneveld, James Wade, Terry Jenkins and Gary Anderson are very, very good players. But as long as Taylor is around and motivated, they don’t stand a chance. And this is bad news for the sport: competition is essential to maintain interest and at the moment, to draw a parallel with the tediously predictable SPL, Taylor is like Rangers and Celtic rolled into one.

Darts continues to draw huge crowds and is probably the surprise sporting success story of the last 10 years. But, frankly, it’s getting to the stage where Taylor is becoming more of a hindrance than a help. People’s admiration can only lend itself so far; there are only so many times that you can watch the same result over and over again. Instead, Taylor is a top-priced 8/15 to win the PDC title for a 13th time this January. The expression ‘fill your boots’ springs to mind.

In the last leg of Sunday’s final against Waites, Taylor – who had taken out the maximum 170 checkout earlier in the match - hit two consecutive 180s, followed by a treble-20 and a treble-19. He was one throw away from winning the tournament with the ultimate nine-dart finish. As he took aim at double-12, I realised that this man had nowhere left to go. He had already reached darting perfection and by now was just rubbing the rest of our noses in it.

Taylor missed the double 12 by the width of the wire.

Perfection? Not quite.

Given that it is indisputably the most popular club competition in the world, the Champions League comes in for an awful amount of criticism. The chief target is the pre-Christmas group stage, which is dismissed as a predictable, money-spinning procession for Europe’s big-boys with little-to-no interest from a sporting or betting perspective.

If this has been a valid view in previous years, then the 2009 Champions League is doing its best to change perceptions, with several of Europe’s giants in serious danger of missing the knockout stages. Heading into Matchday 4, as UEFA rather gratingly term it, Bayern Munich, Inter Milan and even Barcelona were performing well below some lofty expectations.

Chief underachievers of course were Rafael Benitez’s spluttering Liverpool side, whose travails have been plastered across the back-pages for the last month or so. Normally I’d be reluctant to buy into the media hype surrounding one of the Big Four, be it positive or negative, but a quick glimpse at Group E showed that they were in serious trouble.

A defeat away to Lyon on Wednesday night would almost certainly doom them to a pauper’s existence in the wilderness that is the Europa League. A draw wouldn’t be much better, either. With a late defeat at Anfield to the French side still fresh in the memory, the prospect of a trip to Stade de Gerland without Steven Gerrard and half-fit Fernando Torres didn’t inspire confidence. The pre-match supremacy of Lyon / Liverpool 0.2-0.4 reflected as much.

I couldn’t shake the thought, however, that as poor as Liverpool’s side on the night looked – Benitez was again starting Andriy Voronin for goodness sake – they have the admirable trait of managing to get the job done. I remembered a match in similar circumstances against Marseille in 2007 when, needing a last-ditch win to extricate themselves from another precarious position in the group stages, Benitez’s side cruised to a 4-0 win in the Stade Vélodrome.

Seven players involved that night were set to play in Lyon and I was confident enough that Liverpool’s big-match experience would carry them through. Thus I SOLD LYON SUPREMACY AT 0.2.

Well, if Liverpool were in trouble beforehand then they’re knee-deep in the mire now. Despite an 83rd minute strike from Ryan Babel that looked to have given them the win that their composed performance had deserved, some awful late defending allowed Lisandro Lopez to net a 90th minute equaliser for Lyon.

My supremacy bet ended as a (very) small winner but in the bigger picture, assured the French side’s qualification. Liverpool, meanwhile, are marooned in third place, and the current quote of 5-6 on their Group Index (makes up 25 to winner, 10 to second, 5 to third) reflects their unlikelihood to finish anywhere else.

Of the other underperformers, Inter Milan rallied from 1-0 down to post a late 2-1 win in Kiev which propelled them to the top of a very tight-looking Group F. Barcelona, drawn in the same group, could only manage a 0-0 with Rubin Kazan, their conquerors at the Nou Camp two weeks previously.

Barça remain favourites to progress (16-17.5), ahead of Inter (13.5-15), Rubin Kazan (5.5-7) and the surely doomed Dynamo Kiev (2-3.5). Things are nearly decided in Group A, where Bayern Munich (5-6) are almost certainly out, thanks to a 2-0 home defeat to FC Bordeaux (19.5-21) who look set to qualify alongside Juventus (13.5-15).

JW

Green 34, Omaha, Omaha, hut hut hut! Yep, the NFL season has been back up and running for several weeks now and has been as fascinating and unpredictable as ever. Betting at the start of the NFL season can seem like a lottery at time, but having had a decent amount of time to look at and evaluate the leading contenders, I’ve identified a couple of value bets – in theory at least! – on the Super Bowl Outright index.

Just to clarify, the Outright Index awards 100 to the eventual World Champions (sic), 70 to the runners-up, 50 to the Conference finalists, 33 to Divisional Play-offs losers and 20 those who only reach the Wild Card Play-off. Phew! In short, 12 of the 32 NFL will ‘cash’ but not necessarily enough for buyers to get their whole stake back.

1) SELL NEW ORLEANS AT 50

Getting against the New Orleans Saints? Sounds mad I know. And their early season form has been extraordinarily good. 6-0, including convincing wins against the Eagles, Giants and Jets. Drew Brees is looking like a shoo-in for season MVP, the defence is the best they’ve had in years, while the offence racks up 45+ points on a stunningly regular basis. What’s not to like? Well, you could point to the fact that the Saints have never reached the Super Bowl in their history and have a group of players who are yet to show they can handle the extreme pressure of the NFL play-offs. And then there’s the fact that the defence, while leading the NFL in turnovers and having generally played out of their skin so far, still rank in the bottom half of the NFL in points allowed. If the offence doesn’t fire in the play-offs for whatever reason, can they really be relied on to win the Saints the game?
But my main reason for selling is historical. Simply put, every year in the NFL there’s a team who over-perform at the start of the season only to revert back to type later on. Last year it was Tennessee, who went 9-0 only to lose in the first round of the playoffs. A few years before exactly the same happened to Kansas City. If a team are going to stay hot, it helps if they’re used to being up top. The 2007 Patriots were; the 2009 Saints are not. Selling at 50, I’m willing to take my chances that New Orleans eventually fall back down to earth with an early play-off exit.

2) BUY BALTIMORE AT 18

The Baltimore Ravens were subject to a pre-season gamble and this looked justified as they charged to a 3-0 start. With sophomore quarter-back Joe Flacco leading his offence like a wizened old pro, it seemed that for the first time in many a year, Baltimore were strong on both sides of the ball. Since then however, the Ravens have skid to three consecutive losses and currently lie third in a horribly competitive-looking AFC North. Furthermore the Baltimore defence is looking far shakier than usual. It has been suggested, or whispered rather, that the renowned unit featuring Ray Lewis, Ed Reed et al. isn’t what it used to be. The stats bear this out: they rank 16th in points allowed and 19th in total yards. So why buy them on the index at all, never mind at a still high-ish looking 18? It’s all about potential. This team, potentially, is one of the very best in the NFL. If the defence can sort out their recent issues and revert to the previous form, and the offence keeps firing as it has been, then 18 could look cheap in a few weeks time. The two teams above them in the AFC South, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, are both two games ahead at 5-2 but neither has looked unbeatable this season, and Cincinnati, especially, could find themselves pipped by the Ravens to a wildcard spot.

So we can add the Saints and the Ravens to the long-term portfolio which already includes Aston Villa, Man City and Burnley. It’s been a decent start in the Premier League so far, so here’s to more success in the NFL.

JW

In theory, random draws are a wonderful idea. Think of the excitement that FA Cup third round day brings, or at least used to. Minnows getting rewarded for early round success with a plum tie away to a giant club, or local rivals clashing in the cup for first time in years; all this from the random union of Trevor Brooking’s #35 with Jimmy Hill’s #63.

There is, alas, a problem with such a format which is particularly accentuated in a small competition rather lacking in star names. Such as, say, the World Grand Prix snooker. The hook of this 32-man event is the random draw that follows each of the first four rounds. Unlike all other snooker ranking events, the cosseted top-16 ranked players are not protected from each other. And so it came to pass that the 2009 Grand Prix’s two recognisable stars, Ronnie O’Sullivan and John Higgins, clashed in a 2nd round contest that pitted the reigning World Number One against the current World Champion.

From a sporting, and spread betting, point of view the contest was intriguing. The market consensus had O’Sullivan as a warm favourite against Higgins the hometown hero. In my humble punting opinion, this didn’t sit right. Higgins has experienced considerable success against Ronnie over the course of their careers and is clearly one of the (few) players that the Rocket truly respects in the game. True, their only meeting this season, in the Shanghai Masters semi-finals, had resulted in an easy 6-1 win for O’Sullivan, and when pricing up any Ronnie match you always have to factor in the possibility that he will come out in such a mood that makes him simply unplayable.

Nonetheless Higgins looked in far better nick than O’Sullivan in their respective first round matches, and is simply the more reliable player from a punting perspective – far less likely to have an off-day or play half the match left-handed to make snooker more ‘fun’. And if that wasn’t enough, you only had to read O’Sullivan’s interview to see how mentally unstable he is feeling at the moment (sample quote: “The longer I can stay playing the game without feeling like I want to commit suicide, the better”).

While O’Sullivan can be prone to melodrama, this isn’t the most encouraging thing to hear before backing a player. And so I quite confidently SOLD O’SULLIVAN’S 25:0 AT 14.25 – a fixed-odds type bet with only a win or lose outcome since, as fun as supremacies markets such as the ‘10/3’ can be, they’re downright scary when you’re getting against the most talented player to ever grace the game.

The match itself was a nip and tuck affair, featuring both impressive break-building (such as the 131 from Ronnie to open up proceedings) and some surprisingly poor misses. They went into the mid-session interval at two-apiece and before Ronnie took a 4-3 lead with a typically fluent 67 break. At 50-6 up and only a couple of pots away from the match, Ronnie cued across an unbelievably simple, straight red handing Higgins a lifeline.

I later found out that O’Sullivan had traded at 1.01 for the match on the betting exchanges just before this miss, leaving some short-odds backers feeling very green indeed. Higgins, consummate professional that he is, capitalised on Ronnie’s mistake, sealing the frame 58-56 before compiling a quite magnificent 94 break in the decider to squeak the match 5-4.

I’ve had a few bets trade at 1.01 before losing in the past, so it was wonderful to have the opposite occur for once. In the grander scheme of things, the match was a fair indicator as to why O’Sullivan, as supremely skilled as he is, can never be considered the type of ‘banker’ Phil Taylor or Tiger Woods represent in their own sports. In many ways, it’s impressive that a man who has admitted suffering from demons has managed to carve out such a memorable career in this most mentally challenging of sports. But as distasteful as it may seem to link mental health with betting profit, this does mean there’s never such thing as ‘free money’ when it comes to Ronnie O’Sullivan.

JW

Take a look at the following sequence: Button, Vettel, Webber, Hamilton, Barrichello, Raikkonen. What came next? The answer was Barrichello, winner of the last Grand Prix at Monza two weeks ago, and the first repeat winner of a race in Formula 1 since Jenson Button won his sixth out of seven in Turkey. This was back in early June, a time when it looked like Brawn GP was romping home to the Constructor’s Championship in its maiden season, with its undercooked rivals at a loss to stop the new speedster on the grid. Since then, however, a sport frequently derided for its predictability has sprung up surprise after surprise. And that’s just on the racetrack.

Without meaning to go back over the innumerable controversial off-field incidents that have punctuated Formula 1 season, there is a certain delicious twist that in the same week that the full shameful extent of Piquet Jr.’s deliberate crash was revealed, the teams have returned to the same track where the whole sorry saga unfurled, Singapore. Goodness only knows what will be running through Fernando Alonso’s mind in the pit-lane on Sunday. Last year’s winner will be racing without the support of his erstwhile team-mates Briatore, Piquet and Symonds, and the Renault driver must surely be feeling guilty about his role in their downfall – despite his denial of any involvement in the incident.

Alonso is available at 9-12 on the race index for the Grand Prix, which awarded 60 points to the winner, 40 to the runner-up, all the way down to 5 points for eighth place. I’ve always found this index an enjoyable market to play: having 8 places paid far exceeds the 3 typically offered each-way by fixed odds firms. Even if the leaders charge away at the start, your attention is still held by the chasing pack, within which the scrap for points is normally even more intense, especially as this stage of the season with contracts up for renewal. With over half the drivers expected to swap teams in time for the start of the 2010 season, the likes of Kubica, Rosberg and Alonso will be eagerly anticipating brighter futures with stronger teams, while the struggling Nakajima, Grosjean and Kovalainen must be fearing the worst.

At the head of the betting this time around is the rejuvenated Lewis Hamilton, who is currently trading at 28.5–31.5 on the race index and at 23–29 on Spreadex’s fixed odds spreads, which make up 100 to the winner. The McLaren has been seriously pacey in recent weeks and it was only a desperate lunge for second place which resulted in a dramatic last lap crash for Hamilton in Monza. This weekend it’s hard to see him off the podium. Elsewhere, Barrichello is ranked ahead of Button for the first time this season after their contrasting recent form for Brawn. If Jenson does go on to win the Driver’s Championship – and he’s still a strong favourite with a 14 point lead and 4 races less – then he really will have taken the expression ‘limping over the line’ to a whole new level. It’s reminiscent of Aesop’s fable of the Tortoise and the Hare…but with the hare winning by a neck. On a related note, Button is 6/4 favourite for Sports Personality of the Year. Now, even if he was a marginally less vile human being, that would still scream ‘lay’. As it is, surely Button can only win if, come polling day, the Great British Public collectively loses leave of its senses. Then again, renowned ‘personalities’ Nigel Mansell and Michael Owen have won the award in the not-so-distant past, so on reflection, it’s a probably a market to avoid getting involved in whatsoever.

JW

Ever get the impression that you just have a little too much interest in a game? That’s how I was feeling as kick-off approached on Monday night for the match between
Liverpool and Aston Villa.

My interest was four-fold, seeing as:

1) I’d bought Aston Villa points at the start of the season (see article below)
2) I’d decided to BUY STEVEN GERRARD GOAL MINUTES AT 26 for this match so was cheering him on.
3) I support one of Liverpool’s title rivals (won’t say who) so was keen to see the Scousers fall to their second defeat of the season.
4) I was involved in a particularly competitive fantasy football competition and this match was crucial.

So not only was my interest excessive in the match, but it was also heavily conflicted, basically coming down to four variables - £££ (long-term), £££ (short-term), pride (long-term) and pride (short-term). It was evident that there was no chance in hell of everything going my way so it was a question of prioritising, compromising and cutting deals with myself in search of a vaguely acceptable end result.

In the battle of the £££s, money in the future is never as useful as money right now, so I would have happily sacrificed a decent result for Villa for a couple of late Gerrard screamers.

What I’ve loosely described as ‘pride’ is more difficult to quantify and mixes poorly with gambling at the best of times. Supporting a club – and I mean really supporting here, living and breathing results and undergoing violent mood swings dependent on the weekend’s events – is a labour of love, but laborious none the less. Winning and losing money off a set of football results can bring similar feelings of joy and despair, though these feel distinctly more hollow than the genuine feelings of fandom – or so I’d always told myself.

Your emotional success in mixing gambling and supporting probably depends on your ability to internally differentiate between the two: while many, myself included, would flatly refuse to bet against their own team in a match, I know of people who do this every week for what they describe as an ‘emotional hedge’. But how much does the cash you win offset the pain of a defeat? And how much money would you have to lose on a bet to entirely knock the shine off a win? I suspect the amount is less than some would care to admit.

Before we get too bogged down in hypothetical questions of emotion, the more eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that the fourth ‘interest’ listed above was fantasy football? Now surely a silly game, which is basically betting but without any material reward, can’t be a serious consideration here? Not as simple. The fantasy football in question is a head-to-head league played among an intensely competitive group of office colleagues. With two defeats out of two so far, another losing week was nearly unthinkable.

As it transpired, I had Liverpool’s left-back Emiliano Insua (pictured above) whereas my adversary was fielding Villa centre-back Curtis Davies. As we were tied on points, in effect it was a straight match-bet between Davies and Insua. With Liverpool playing at home and firm favourites, any home win would be enough to send me through.

So what was I actually cheering for? By this stage, I had absolutely no idea. I resolved to just sit back and let the football come to me. Liverpool started the brightly and Gerrard had a couple of excellent chances in the eighth minute to score. There is a theory that if you’ve bought a player’s goal minutes then you don’t want them to score early on but I’ve never really gone along with this. After all, even an eighth-minute goal is worth a few points and I refuse to believe that it means Gerrard has somehow ‘used up’ his allotted quota of goals for the game. However, seeing as Gerrard missed both times, this never became an issue. Indeed, it was Villa who took the lead through an OG from the hapless Lucas – great news for Villa points, but a disaster for Insua, who lost his valuable clean sheet bonus thanks to the incompetence of his team-mate.

Then, as the first half ebbed towards a close, Villa amazingly scored again – this time through, of all people, Curtis Davies, my fantasy football nemesis. With this week’s contest now almost certain to end in another defeat, I consoled myself in the thought that everything else was going swimmingly: Villa were set to win away at Liverpool, which was wonderful news for their season points. Liverpool in turn were looking precariously poised in the title race, just three games in, which was wonderful news for my football club. And if they were going to launch a comeback, who better to lead it than Steven Gerrard, captain marvel?

Ah yes, about that. Gerrard went close a few times in the second half, but not in the last 20 minutes, when PGM buyers are most handsomely rewarded. This was no-one’s fault but his own: just after Torres had scored to put Liverpool back in the game at 2-1, Gerrard launched into a mad, bad and dangerous tackle inside his own penalty area, upending Nigel Reo-Coker and conceding the penalty that would cost Liverpool the game.

At 3-1 with 15 minutes left, the comeback was officially over. Gerrard and his team-mates meandered through a tepid last 15 minutes, without coming close to scoring. Bad news then for buyers Gerrard goal minutes, which made up zero, and terrible news for the fantasy football, but the convincing Villa win was more than beneficial elsewhere. All in all, a confusing night’s work.

JW

If it is a cliché to suggest that post of England manager is a poisoned chalice, then it’s one that has stood the test of time. The first incumbent this century, Sven-Göran Ericsson had by most standards a broadly successful reign, consistently breezing through qualification and leading England to three consecutive quarter-finals. Regardless, the erudite Swede was forced out by a rabid, xenophobic press-pack for the heinous sin of supposedly lacking that English panacea: ‘passion’.

And so we replaced Sven for Steve, who apparently possessed this great intangible, only to decide that he lacked, well, practically everything else. The usual vitriol began to fly towards McClaren: he was out of his depth, tactically naïve, in thrall of his players, too conservative, not conservative enough. His teeth were too white.

Worst of all, he dared to put up an umbrella while getting drenched by a thunderstorm on a chilly November evening. As often is the case with England, negativity begat fear, which in turn begat underachievement; England produced a listless display at home to Croatia on said chilly November evening and went on to miss Euro 2008.

Despite the subsequent outbreak of hysteria, Euro 2008 managed to survive without England and was all the more enjoyable for it. But the good times couldn’t last for ever and soon England were back in action. We had a new manager, Fabio. Erudite and passionate, the perfect mix. World Cup qualifying began and a wave of optimism spread across the nation. We started winning matches again: 4-1, 5-1, 6-0! Take that Croatia, Kazakhstan and Andorra!

And so, with seven wins out of seven we sit dazzling atop World Cup Group 6, a once-proud nation now proud again. Everything is wonderful with Don Fabio at our helm: it’s sure going be a wrench getting rid of this one, he’s a keeper. And you know what? This could really be ‘our year’. No really, it could.

Ah yes, we’ve sure been here before. From glory to despair and back again. Build ‘em up and knock ‘em down – nobody does it better than the English. Make no mistake, we’re building ourselves up again right now. It’s not like we don’t even realise what we’re doing, it’s just that it’s so ingrained within English football that they’re powerless to stop it. Take these quotes from Frank Lampard last week: “I’m wary of falling into the trap where people ask if you can win it, you say you can, and then expectations rise”, he starts promisingly. “Of course we can win it, though”, he ends inevitably.

Well we can, yes, but so can everyone from Spain at the top of the betting (5/1) to Sudan right at the bottom (5000/1). It doesn’t mean that we actually will though, but if you believe the bookies – who, don’t forget, are nothing more than a reflection of the expected views of the punters – then England are 8/1 fourth-favourites for the World Cup. This is behind Spain, Brazil and Argentina (which in itself must have required an inordinate degree of restraint) but ahead of the likes of Germany, Italy and France – you know, countries that have actually won major trophies in the last 20 years.

England played Holland on Wednesday night in an international friendly, that most pointless of match. I BOUGHT SUPREMACY AT 0.3, getting with Holland, in my own miniscule attempt to prick the pomposity of the England hype machine. Holland went two-nil up and I was enjoying myself very much. Then England scored two and it started again. The excitement, the exuberance, the endless hype. I lost my bet, but when it comes to England, I lost my will a long time ago.

JW

Love it or loathe it – and plenty of people do both – the Premier League is only 10 days away and now seems as good a time as ever to try and size up what lies in store. One of the most popular spread betting markets available is Season Points, where the firms try and predict the final league table before the season has even begun. It’s not an easy market to play, but the rewards can be substantial – if you’re right, naturally. Spreadex’s quotes can be found on their website and everyone will have their own ideas over who to sell or buy, but here were a few bets that I fancied myself:

1) BUY ASTON VILLA POINTS AT 56.5

The quote offered on Aston Villa this season is 55-56.5 so if, like me, you fancy them to perform decently again this season, buying their points seems a no-brainer. I really thought this would be higher: Villa were flying for two-thirds of last season and looked set for a Champions League spot ahead of Arsenal before a horrendous late collapse. This was commonly ascribed to their small squad size, and while this is still a problem, it has to be remembered that their season began last year in mid-July with the (now-defunct) Intertoto Cup.

This European campaign lasted until late-February when, already showing signs of struggling to compete on several fronts, they lost to a useful CSKA Moscow side and embarked on a winless streak of nine league games, earning only 11 points from their last 13 games. Despite this, they still ended up with a very respectable total of 62 and I see little reason why they can’t maintain that kind of level of performance this time around. The squad has been more-or-less kept intact, bar the expected loss of Gareth Barry, the sale of Zat Knight and the retirement of Martin Laursen – who missed around half of last season due to injury anyway.

In have come Stewart Downing (crocked until December) and Leeds starlet Fabian Delph. What’s more, the dynamic duo of Young and Agbonlahor – who were so pivotal to the Villa’s impressive start but faded away more than most after Christmas – should be refreshed after the summer break and all the stronger for their experience last season. As a last thought – since Martin O’Neill took over in 2006, Villa have scored 50, 60 and 62 points. I see little reason to anticipate any imminent decline from the Villans this year.

2) SELL MANCHESTER CITY POINTS AT 65.5

OK, this is a little more dangerous, I admit. Man City’s recent exploits in the transfer market have been well-documented and in theory, backing a team which contains Robinho, Adebayor, Tevez, Barry et al. to struggle seems to fly in the face of logic. The key to this bet though is the level at which you can sell: 65.5 points is an awful lot for a team to reach, given that they scored only 50 last year. Quite evidently this is a new Man City side, but until the signings are fully integrated within whatever formation Mark Hughes chooses to play (it’s looking like 2-2-6 at the moment with the amount of strikers he’s bought), it’s doubtful that the team will play to its full potential.

City’s current spending spree has been described as unprecedented within history of the English game, but the same was said about Chelsea before the 2003-2004 season, just after Roman Abromovich had taken over and handed Claudio Ranieri the keys to his treasure chest. The result was a 12-point improvement from the season before last – impressive, but it took a change of manager (to Jose Mourinho) and another season of heavy spending before Chelski FC was fully formed and won its first league title. With question marks still hovering over Mark Hughes’ ability to manage big names, and indeed over his long-term future as manager. I’m happy to take a chance and get short of City points for now, with a view to a potential close later in the season when things are a little less chaotic at Eastlands.

3) BUY BURNLEY POINTS AT 32

Middlesbrough scored 32 points last season and won 7 of their 38 games in the Premier League. Meanwhile, Burnley won 5 of their 8 games against Premier League opposition, even though they were playing in the Championship. They also achieved promotion, despite a marathon season that involved 12 cup ties and a successful Play-off campaign. Nevertheless, they are favourites across the board to finish at the foot of the pile in their first Premier League season and this is reflected in their points quote of 30.5-32.

Now let’s say that the bookies are right to dismiss their chances this season and they do indeed finish in the bottom three. In the last five years, the average number of points scored by a relegated side is 30.5, but this is skewed by two exceptionally bad teams: Derby County in ’07-08 who scored just 11 points, and Sunderland in ’05-06, who reached 15. If these are disregarded, the average rises to 33.1. So basically, providing that Burnley avoid the kind of catastrophic seasons that befell Derby and Sunderland – and their solid squad and previous results against Premier League sides suggest this is likely – then they are in for over 32 points even if they get relegated.

On top of this, there is a more than fair possibility (about 40% according to the bookmakers) that Burnley will stay up, in which case the sky’s the limit when it comes to their season points. Well, maybe not the sky – probably more like 50 – but it still looks like a buy with limited downside and decent potential.

So there we go – check back here at the end of the season when Man City are Champions, Burnley are the new Derby County and Villa have replaced Martin O’Neill with the highly-touted Dr Jozef Venglos. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

JW