Tuesday 13 October 2015

Trading lessons in the pub!

Back to writing with a new trading post on why you should pay a visit to the pub, drink a pint and observe the locals while they watch football. Let’s see if this makes sense…

If trading is a war you better read some Sun Tzu quotes!

There is controversy around it but it’s generally accepted that Sun Tzu, a Chinese military general and strategist, wrote “The art of war” somewhere in the BC era. This war strategy manual was translated to English in 1910, being nowadays overly cited in virtually any field involving some type of competition.


Sports trading and competition goes hand in hand as one of trading components is precisely a sort of battle between people with different skillsets. In “Game of trades – the fight for the green throne!”, I described the armies involved, today I’ll look at it from another angle: how can you apply some of Sun Tzu or Sun Pin (who knows?) reasoning and become or at least understand your enemy? 

Took a trading course in the pub drinking cheap lager before knowing about Betfair and craft beer!

Before the explosion of internet streaming, there was only one way to have access to all football, a paid TV channel which was out of my financial reach. Since I’m a football fanatic way before I started trading, I’d often find myself in the Portuguese equivalent to an English pub.



So, before I even knew what a ladder or a lay were, I had already spent almost 10 years watching football in public places, really close to some of my future trading enemies! Today with Twitter, you can have a pre-game feel on the public perception but understanding how a group of people think during a football match is invaluable, if like mine, your trading portfolio includes trading volatility and especially if you do it in short time frames.

10 years in the pub don’t come handy so I present you John, the regular!

To cut it short, John likes action. It can be a shot from downtown (he doesn’t rate xG or “money ball(s)”!), a cross from far away or virtually any set-piece, but the ball should come close to the opposition area, fast and often. Otherwise, he’ll start to get a sense of disbelief on his team chances and criticize every single backwards or sideways pass, saying stuff like “Backwards pisses the donkey!”. Defenders are rated by the outcome of individual duels, while strikers are defined by goals. Talking about goals, they are always a surprise when they come from the underdog with the match tied (Peter Webb wrote about this perception problem with statistic detail here). Midfielders like Busquets will pass anonymous if the team wins but will be in the first line of criticism otherwise. On the other hand, managers are judged by results and referees can dictate the season classification. 



Don’t get me wrong, everyone has a bit of John when watching their own football club. Moreover, when I started trading football I was John. Later and still nowadays, I have a mental exercise when a major event happens (goal, key injury, red card, etc), which consists on asking: what would John do if he was trading this match? There are trading lessons to be taken from the general crowd opinion during a live match and I’m pretty sure this also applies to other sports like tennis. For instance, understanding how people react to a possible but not certain injury, can't hurt.

Is John a good representation of the enemy?

It depends on what you are doing in the market and your trading time frames. This could be material for another post but the shorter your time frame and the more reactive rather than predictive you are, the more you should care about John. Of course, I’m aware that even if the sum of Johns represent the collective majority, they probably don’t represent the money majority. Nonetheless, more than advocating that understanding John is the key to success, I'm telling: you should never forget you are trading against people. Bots and mathematical models are involved too but they are also created by people. Bottom-line being, depending on your trading style, identify your enemy and for every kind, put yourself in their own skin. As an example, what you would do if you were using a bot? In what situations are they in advantage or disadvantage?

Friday 18 September 2015

It’s time for a follow-up on my Premier League preview! (Part 2 of 2)

The second part of the follow-up on my Premier League preview comes with a delay, but as someone said: “better late than never”.


Arsenal – Getting closer, but is it enough? I don’t think so!


The title is a reference to my preview, where I stated they lack individual quality to win the English Premier League. Based on this, I was expecting the arrival of at least a top player. No one arrived, so Mr. Wenger has to stick with Walcott/Giroud upfront, Coquelin as defensive midfielder and Gibbs/Monreal at the left-back position. They are not bad players but saying Arsenal could only improve these positions with top players, like Mr. Wenger stated, is a fallacy. Of course, it would be the ideal situation, but there are a lot of players who could improve them, at least from a depth perspective. This depth problem was exposed against Liverpool and a bit against Dinamo Zagreb, especially at the center-back position, where the inclusion of Gabriel and/or Chambers represent a major decrease in quality.


To add to that, I honestly think Walcott doesn’t fit as a striker in Arsenal's possession game. He is mainly dangerous in one match moment, the defensive-offensive transition, if given space to explore his pace; ironically enough, Arsenal plays in the opposition half most of the time, with limited space for Walcott to be effective. Apart from all the negative points stated, I still think they are the most pleasant side to watch in the Premier League with a very fluid attacking system. 

The markets consider them to be second favorites to win the EPL with an odd of 5.8 but I really can’t see that happening. In fact, I think they'll receive a reality check from Chelsea on Saturday. Like always, when it comes to football predictions, I may well be the idiot when Chelsea vs Arsenal finishes!


Man United – Divide and conquer 2.0 by Louis Van Gaal


Like I said before, I don’t fully understand Louis Van Gaal, both tactically and from a man management perspective. I get puzzled over and over again by his options: there’s the De Gea/Valdes/Romero riddle, shipping Javier Hernandez to Leverkusen while playing Fellaini as a striker, preferring Young over Nani, going for a tremendous overpriced deal for Martial at the deadline and the list could go on. 

When it comes to Man United, Alex Ferguson will always be the benchmark and one of his secrets was always being able to provide the ideal conditions for second-line players to excel. Everyone will remember the top class players he managed, but for every Ronaldo, Giggs or Vidic there was Evans, Fletcher or the aforementioned Chicharito who were vital as the seasons went on.


Van Gaal seems to prefer a ruthless approach, which leaves him with a short number of valid options as the individual player quality is above the system. In this sense, I think Shaw's injury will be very detrimental to their defense, especially if Blind is deployed at left-back and Rojo enters the team.


That said, their midfield pressing is a bright spot this season, which makes them a lot more dangerous without the ball. When they have to dominate possession, problems arise as their build-up issues from last season are still there and pretty evident. Finally, the markets priced them above Chelsea to win the EPL, at 12.5, which is hard for me to understand even with a 6 point difference between them.


Honorable mention – Tottenham


Although they lack the top 4 individual quality, Tottenham is a very well managed team, which will receive a massive boost from Heung-Ming Son arrival. Pochettino’s approach is based on possession-style football, with two of the best central backs, in the EPL, offensive-wise and two top players in Kane and especially Eriksen. At the moment, they would be my pick for the 5th place.

Thursday 3 September 2015

It’s time for a follow-up on my Premier League preview! (Part 1 of 2)

Like promised and as the transfer market is now closed, I’ll take a look on the effect of late signings and the first four Premier League weeks on title contenders’ chances. So, let’s begin with the champions with limp wings…

Chelsea – Offensive limp wings become permeable defensively…

In my Premier League preview, I talked about the limp wings issue which consists in the lack of offensive threat offered by Chelsea’s full backs. The first four fixtures confirmed this idea but a new and more serious problem arose: defensive stability, which was one of the keys to 14/15 title, is gone. Ivanovic, who has always been reliable defensively, is being constantly exposed by the opposition and John Terry seems past his prime. Although there is individual fault involved, I think Chelsea’s defensive problem is more systemic, as it’s also not usual for them, to have Ivanovic exposed to 1v1 situations, so frequently. 


Hazard’s Schrödinger cat issue is also evident this season as he can’t be in the first line of creation and be expected to finish at the same time. Probably, Pedro arrival will ease his burden and also help Ivanovic defensively on the right. This was quite a capture for Chelsea, which had a good transfer window. In Baba Rahman they have an offensive-minded left back, which might shift Azpilicueta to right back, and represent the key to solve the limp wings issue. Of course, everybody’s writing them off already, as they are 8 points off Manchester City, but don’t forget there are 34 fixtures to play and with a weaker squad on paper, they did 87 points last season.

Man City – Defensively permeable in 14/15 to Defensive fortress in 15/16

I told you they were the most dominant side in the Premier League in my preview and the first Premier League weeks confirmed that idea. Furthermore, the inclusion of Sterling is being a success as their possession-style football benefits from the width he and Navas offer. This is the reason why I’m a bit skeptic about the inclusion of Kevin De Bruyne in the starting eleven as some positional redundancy will be introduced.


Don’t get me wrong, he is a great player but there's more to football than picking eleven players and sending them to the pitch. In this particular case, I think he tends to occupy Silva’s territory and you know my opinion: there’s only one David Silva! Pellegrini must have a plan for the Belgian, and I’m looking forward to see how it will play out. Defensively-wise, I have to say: I’m amazed with their evolution. Mangala is playing very well, but especially the defensive midfield work has been stellar with Fernandinho exceling. Furthermore, they signed Otamendi who I rate as one of the best central backs in the game. 

They look very strong on paper and on the pitch, and it will be very interesting to see their Champions League campaign. Truth must be said though, they are getting some bad karma out of their spending ways, as their draws are always nasty.


I still think they'll be defensively exposed against Euopean top teams, but they are certainly stronger this year. They surpassed Chelsea as favorites, for the Premier League title, and rightly so, but I don’t think the title race is over, as the season is long and full of terrors!

Thursday 27 August 2015

Is there a blind obsession with statistics in the betting world?

Third trading post and this one is a direct consequence of my incursion in the mighty world of Twitter. I already knew about betting advice based on statistical data, what I wasn’t expecting was the magnitude and the reach of it. Bear in mind I’m probably biased when it comes to this issue due to my research background, which involved statistics, data and computational modeling. So, let’s begin…



Would a person who never cooked be able to make a top dish, if given a large amount of ingredients, of variable quality, to choose from?

When it comes to cooking, there are at least two important parts of the equation: technique and ingredients quality. If you’re like me and don’t know a lot of cooking techniques, the only way you’ll succeed is by choosing good ingredients and somehow don’t spoil them in the process. So, what does this have to do with the use of statistics in the betting world? Probably there are better analogies, but my point is: we live in a world where the amount of data is huge and readily available for everyone. Adding to that, nowadays you don’t need to have a Math degree to somehow be able to extract some odds out of that data. That being said, I can assure you that if you don’t have an edge statistically-wise and you don’t know how to select quality data from the whole bunch, the odds you are cooking will suck!


Enough of cooking, let’s get down to business!

Fair enough, let’s start with the “problem” of the amount of data available. Manchester United are playing against Swansea on Sunday and with some tweaking here and there, you can select two sets of data: one that supports Swansea to win and other in favor of Man Utd. Furthermore, you can also find evidence supporting the over and the under for the same match. Politicians and economists with some agenda do this all the time, it’s all about cooking it the right way.


When it comes to the punting world, I understand the commercial side of it: you’re selling something and a bit of data can validate your tips. If you’re right, you’re the man, if you’re wrong blame the variance! 

This leads us to the other part of the problem, the selection of meaningful data. In science, if you want to obtain credible results, from an experience, the number of observations is an important issue. Furthermore, each observation must be obtained in the exact same circumstance as the others. So, transposing this to football databases, how can you reach any conclusion about Van Gaal’s Man Utd, based on historical data from Ferguson or Moyes tenures? Even the first Van Gaal matches are not meaningful in the present, as he experimented a lot in the beginning; ex: what does a 3-man defense with the likes of Tyler Blackett playing as to do with the current setup?

Football: the sport where results lie!

One of the reasons behind football popularity is the frequent unfair nature of the final result; in some sense, it’s a bit like trading sometimes: a team can take more EV+ decisions than the opponent and still lose or draw the match. Final results lie in football! 

As an example let’s take two 0-0 results from last week: Man Utd vs Newcastle and Arsenal vs Liverpool. In the future, these results will be used to support some Under bet or to model the odds of the Under/Over market. While in Man Utd game, the 0-0 can be considered a fairly true result, anyone who saw Arsenal vs Liverpool can’t possibly say that the 0-0 reflect what happened. Both GK had amazing performances, plus there was a goal unfairly ruled out for Arsenal and 3 shots off the woodwork. My point being: don’t follow or use stats blindly, they don’t tell the whole story!

Final remarks – Take advantage of stats and not the other way round!

As I stated in the introduction, my professional background probably introduces some bias in my views, as I know it’s relatively easy to drown in the sea of statistics available nowadays. 


Nonetheless, I’d like to state I truly believe it’s possible to take advantage of stats in order to score some profits out of the markets. What I don’t believe is that anybody can do it, just because they are available. As always, you have to have an edge: it can be your data selection, your statistical knowledge, your ability to construct customized data from the databases available or others I don’t even know about. 

As a final remark, you may ask me: “so, if you work with stats and data, why do you approach the markets with an intuitive-based approach?”. Fair question, but I guess I choose to follow the old proverb: “In the house of a blacksmith, the ornaments are made of wood”.

Wednesday 19 August 2015

Game of trades – The fight for the green throne!

Second trading topic and, if you are a Game of Thrones fan like me, you probably caught the title reference. So, what does a fantasy TV show have in common with sports trading? First of all, I’m not particularly fond of the fantasy theme but Game of Thrones is a lot more than that. For me, it’s mostly about human nature in a competitive environment. Similarly, sports trading is a lot about human behavior: your own and the others’. A good understanding of people’s motivations and their behavior in daily life can only help you, when it comes to trading. The second common feature, and the one I’ll be exploring in this post, is the fight between - and inside - groups of people with different skillsets for the ultimate prize: the iron throne in the TV show, and the green one in trading!


Seeing trading as a big battlefield where each one brings their own custom-made weapons!

So ask yourself, which weapons do you rely on when the match starts and you're up against the others? Other question pops: who are the others? I’ll probably leave someone out, but as I see it, these are your main opponents: courtsiders, bots, traders spotting value with mathematical models, live punters and intuitive traders based on market and/or sports knowledge. 

Courtsiders always get a lot of stick on the internet as their approach is based on a technological advantage. Briefly, they base their positions on their ability to reach information first. Lots of people share the vision that they are ruining trading, and I can understand the point to some degree, but I wouldn’t worry about them. You have to acknowledge they exist, know what they are doing and get away from them as much as you can. Probably they are a bigger problem in tennis than in football, but all you have to do is find other ways to trade, without competing directly with them. Also, although they exist and can make a living out of it, I’m pretty sure there is a fierce competition among them and a lot more failed courtsiders than successful ones. If you do football pre-live trading, which I don’t, there is also an information competition for the starting line-ups, which could also be classified as some sort of courtsiding but is generally not spoken of.




On to the bots, which I love deeply when they screw up! These are software applications running automated trading positions based on some sort of algorithm developed by their creator. I might be speaking out of my depth here but I think they are generally developed around historical price data. Of course, they are not prepared for outliers! There are also people like Matthew from The Crazed Alchemist, who is very knowledgeable on the betting/trading world and bases his positions on an in-play mathematical model, which spots value on the markets. 

Finally, my own group: people who trade from home based on their market and/or sports knowledge. If you are in this group, you don’t have a technological or a mathematical advantage, so “what differentiates you from the others?” is the million-dollar question.

Differentiation – oh no, this is going to be hard work!

Yes, there are no free lunches in the trading world! Like I told you before, even the courtsiders have to differentiate themselves amongst their peers. In terms of football knowledge, this blog is intended to give you a glimpse on how to analyze a football match through the eyes of a trader. Between the lines, I already mentioned that knowing a team like Crystal Palace inside out is more valuable than knowing Real Madrid! Still, how can you differentiate yourself on market knowledge? In my first post I told you I would not dwell into my strategies, but I can tell you a little story about my path. So, my first profitable strategy was developed for the last 5 minutes of the match! To achieve it, during a year and a half I watched hundreds if not thousands of “5 minute matches”. I know it sounds ridiculous but during that period I doubt there was someone in the whole world who had a similar number of market observations for that specific match period. It was not glamorous at all, a bit like the Night's Watch!


Of course, later I expanded my knowledge to the whole match, which is a lot more interesting, I can tell you! That said, the bottom-line here is: differentiate yourself, it can be football or market-wise, maybe both, but you have to do it, in order to improve your success chances.

New twitter account

So, it will start very slowly as I’m new to it, but following some feedback I got, I’m introducing my new twitter account: https://twitter.com/MrUnknownTrader
The goal is to give you some fast updates and previews from the matches I watch, which will feature in the blog, in the usual match review format. Hope you enjoy it!

Sunday 16 August 2015

Match Review: Manchester City - Chelsea

Back to match reviews, here's the first big game of the season! But, first of all I would like to thank for the feedback, on my last post. My focus will remain on football analysis but, from time to time, I’ll mix in some trading topics.

Pre-Game Questions 

No surprises in the starting lineups, but I was looking forward to see how Mangala would fare against a top side and whether he can be the answer for Man City’s defensive woes from last season. Furthermore, I was expecting Man City to dominate the possession game with Chelsea happy to sit deep soaking the pressure, like usually happens when Pellegrini and Mourinho sides meet. I looked at the markets before the match and I thought Man City at 2.00 was a bit on the low side. The match proved me wrong, not because of the final result, but by the way it was played. On to that…

First Half – Chelsea’s plan goes wrong but Begovic keeps them in the game! 

The match starts and, in a matter of seconds, Aguero is face to face with Begovic! The deadlock was not broken but it represents well Chelsea’s game plan failure. It’s usual for Chelsea to give the possession away in big matches and wait for the right moments to launch deadly fast transitions. What is not usual for them, and never happened last season, is the opposition being able to create five or six clear cut chances in 45 minutes. If you give Aguero five of these, you can consider yourself lucky if you only concede one goal, although truth be told: Begovic was amazing!


Back to the game, Manchester City was incredibly dominant in the first half, especially in the first 20 minutes, where they could’ve finished it. When Chelsea was improving a little bit, Aguero proved with an amazing goal why he's the best striker in the Premier League. Chelsea didn’t look good at all in this half and even their medical staff looked worse than usual!


Second Half – Two Belgians with a different fate: Hazard forgives while Kompany kills! 

Chelsea could only improve in the second half and indeed they did, controlling possession a bit more although City always looked the better team. Perhaps, the key moment was Hazard’s missed chance on minute 70 which, by the way, was their best moment in the whole match. When Mourinho decided to risk everything, Kompany sealed the game with another goal from a corner kick, beating Ivanovic in the air, who is also to blame for City’s third goal.

I wrote earlier about Chelsea and Man City in my PL review, and the beginning of the season is highlighting Chelsea’s fragilities and Man City’s qualities. For the lazy ones like me, I’ll repeat it briefly: Eden Hazard is receiving the ball too early in regions where he can’t be decisive while Azpilicueta and Ivanovic don’t pose an offensive threat, leaving Chelsea with limp wings. Furthermore, and this is a new problem, Ivanovic is being exposed defensively which was pretty rare last season and throughout his Chelsea career.


On the other hand, Man City is looking very good, with their possession game at its best and although it’s too early to have a final opinion, Mangala’s inclusion is helping City’s defensive problems. Today, he was really great, very composed and concentrated, and a monster in the air!

Trading: Pre-game analysis vs in-play analysis 

First of all, this topic deserves an entire post, but as a short preview let me tell you that although it is useful to anticipate scenarios before the game, you should not be a hostage of your pre-game opinions. Practical example: I thought 2.00 was a low price for Man City pre-game. The match showed I was wrong, so does it mean that I would lose money if I was trading? Not at all, I could win or lose irrespective of my pre-game opinion as in-play trading starts when the match starts. One of the most common trading mistakes is what I like to call “to fall in love with your opinion”, where one takes positions based on its pre-game opinion, ignoring what is happening on the pitch. Bottom-line being: you don’t have to guess the match outcome to be successful as a trader, it’s all about using the markets to make a profit. The need to be right is an ego issue which doesn’t help at all when it comes to trading.

Thursday 13 August 2015

“Cut your profits short and let your losses run”

No, it's not a mistake! After some football posts I decided to try a trading one, where I’ll explain my views on why the most famous trading saying: “Cut your losses short and let your profits run”, doesn’t apply, at least totally, to in-play sports trading.

Cut your EV- decisions short and let your EV+ decisions run!

To the best of my knowledge, these words are attributed to David Ricardo and were written for the first time in 1838, on “The great metropolis” Vol. 2, by James Grant. Nowadays, if you are somewhat related to the world of stock exchange and/or forex/sports trading is virtually impossible not to have heard about this, it’s everywhere!


So my question is: how does an 1838 saying about the stock exchange, applies to sports trading? The short answer: like most economists’ theories, it only makes sense for controlled environments with low volatility and well-defined patterns. Do in-play sports markets present these features? No!
Perhaps more relevant to the question, you can have a profit from a EV- (negative expected value) decision and have a loss from a EV+ (positive expected value) one. Furthermore, imagine this scenario: you open a EV+ position, the market goes against you, and you close your position with a small loss out of respect for Mr. Ricardo; later (seconds sometimes), you see the market go in your favor, but you’re already out! To get things more complicated, now imagine this: you take an EV- position but the market somewhat favors you, you let the green run only to see it turn red. If you've traded long enough, I’m sure these scenarios ring a bell! 


Ironically, there are situations where you should cut your profits and others where you should let your losses run, a bit at least. My point being: you should cut your EV- decisions short and let your EV+ decisions run! Of course, I’m not saying Mr. Ricardo insight is wrong, far from it. Nonetheless, taking it too literally without thinking, may be detrimental to your in-play trading. I’m repeating “in-play” because pre-live trading is another world.

Million-dollar question: how do I know if my market entry has positive expected value?

The person who creates some sort of trading software which rings and says “Congratulations Mr. Unknown, you just took a EV+ decision!” will be very wealthy and admired by all traders! The fact is: between EV- and EV+ decisions there is a massive grey area. The ugly truth is the only way you can get close to an answer is by intuition based on trading experience. Of course, you can make some kind of calculation, but it would be a very complex process as the conditions change from match to match.


Personally, if you gave me my own set of traded positions after a match, I could tell you that the whole set is EV+, but if asked to classify every single position I would be in trouble.

Food for thought aplenty, but you’re giving me nothing to work with!

Keep in mind this EV issue and trade with purpose; if you’re trying new things every day and give up on a strategy each time you have a loss, you’ll never evolve. The markets are very cruel sometimes, but we only tend to remember the times we were unlucky, believe me, if you've traded long enough you also have had profits you didn’t deserve! Also, when you're on the ladders, it's easy to forget that when you take a position, there is someone on the other side taking the exact opposite one. What makes your decision better than his/hers? (Better stop, this could make another post!)

Blog balance and further directions!

After eight posts, I can tell you I’m enjoying blogging and it's helping me to stay involved. Nonetheless, posts like this one are a bit harder to write than the match reviews. So, it would be great if you could give me some feedback, for me to decide whether to stick to football or mix in some trading topics now and then. Also, discussions about the post are very welcome, as always! 

Monday 10 August 2015

Match Review: WBA – Manchester City

Pre-Game Questions

Raheem Sterling official debut was the biggest point of interest after his £49M transfer from Liverpool. I think he has a lot of potential and can really become the best English player, but I can’t avoid thinking he was a bit overpriced. Also, Man City's possession style presents some challenges he rarely faced as a Liverpool player.


After the starting lineups were announced, the inclusion of Wilfred Bony ahead of Sergio Aguero was a surprise, although there's not much to say about it. Aguero is probably the best striker in the Premier League and most certainly this decision had to do with his involvement in Copa America. The final talking point before the game was Pellegrini’s decision to start the season with Mangala as central defender. I must say I know Mangala pretty well and he is one of the best central defenders in the world in terms of aerial and physical ability.


But, these qualities are most often than not, over-shadowed by his fragilities: concentration and technical ability. The latter can be identified when he is pressed or has to conduct the ball. On the other hand, his concentration issues represent a major handicap as he quite often gives away silly free-kicks (too agressive!) and the occasional blunder.

First half – Two different styles collide in Silva’s playground

Trading-wise, this was the perfect example of how preparation can be useful, as this match was as predictable as it gets. Like I stated, in a more detailed way, in my Premier League review, Man City is the more dominant team in the country, playing a possession-based style with a lot of ball movement. WBA in turn, is probably one of the most direct Premier League teams, especially against strong opposition. Tony Pulis doesn't rate passing number stats as WBA game plan, once they recover possession, is based on reaching the opposition are as fast as they can. Based on this premises, the first half was played in WBA's half and Man City dominated completely. With Silva giving positioning, timing and technical abillity masterclasses, Man City reached the break leading by two goals. I have to say Silva is a joy to watch, he'll probably never play for them but for me he's a perfect example of Barcelona's DNA! 


Mixing a bit of trading in this analysis, there was not a single football reason to back WBA in this half as this match was perfectly one-sided, which is not common in the Premier League. Of course, there could be market reasons to back WBA, for instance if the price for their win was 100 with 0-0, I'd be all over it. You don’t have a choice sometimes, if someone offers you a new and functional vacuum cleaner for 1EUR, you have to buy it even if you don’t need it! Of course, it can help in your domestic duties but even if you already have one, you can always sell it on eBay for 20/25 EUR!

Second Half – No drama this time, as Kompany finishes it!

The game changed slightly in the opening minutes as WBA was able to press and force Man City to commit some minor mistakes like giving away some free-kicks. This is classic Man City and although the game was completely controlled by them, if they had conceded in this period, I could be writing a different review by now. But, nothing happened and in 58th minute Kompany sealed the win with a header from a corner kick.

Man City signings

Sterling is still adapting to the new reality as he now plays for a team who is constantly on the opposition half. This means he'll have to learn how to play with less space available. Nonetheless, after the first goal, Man City was able to do some quick transitions and it was obvious that Sterling was more adapted to this kind of play. Bottom-line being, the great players always find a way and if Sterling is the real deal he’ll find it sooner or later. 

Sunday 9 August 2015

Match Review: Stoke City - Liverpool

On to the second match review of this blog, this time with the return of Liverpool to the Britannia Stadium, where they were thumped 6-1 in the last game of 2014/15 Premier League.

Pre-Game Questions

Regarding Liverpool, I was looking forward to see the “who adapts to whom” game concerning Benteke. Brendan Rodgers opted for the most obvious and correct answer and the amount of long balls was kept low. Also, once the lineups were announced, reading “Joe Gomez” didn't ring a bell for me, so that was another point of interest, which will be further developed.
About Stoke, it's interesting to see the slow evolution they are undergoing, from the Rory Delap's days, where every throw-in in the opposition half was like a corner, to nowadays where players like Affelay and Van Ginkel are being deployed in the starting eleven.

Of course, that Stoke shirt still has magical powers as even the more technical players get aggressive when they wear it, as Affelay proved with a “welcome to Stoke” challenge on Clyne in the opening stages!

The match – If Chelsea has limp wings, Liverpool’s left one was amputated!

Don’t get me wrong, the title is not intended to bash Joe Gomez as he’s a kid who didn’t had a bad game by any means. Apart from some timing errors due to his inexperience, he was composed, played simple and didn’t gave the ball away. In fact, I’m pretty sure he did exactly what Rodgers asked him to do. The bottom-line is that his inclusion led to one of the most assymetric offensive dynamics I have ever seen, which of course didn’t benefit Liverpool at all, if their objective was to win the game. So, they had Joe Gomez as a left-back, Lallana always going from the left to the center and even the dynamics of their midfield duo was inclined to the right with the derivation of James Milner. One can argue, is Stoke’s right back so good defensively that it is not worth trying? No, Stoke’s right back is Glen Johnson whose handicap is precisely his defensive game. As a consequence, Glen Johnson had one of the easiest games of his career and I think Rodgers deserves at least a vintage wine bottle from him, as a gift for his quiet afternoon.


Of course, Rodgers also has to offer something to Coutinho who scored a goal from nothing and gave Liverpool the win when there was nothing separating the two sides.

About the game, it was very even for the vast majority of playing time, with Liverpool improving a bit on the second half especially after the Lallana-Can substitution which freed Milner and gave them more ball possession. That said, I don’t remember a save from Butland and Mignolet also had a quiet afternoon. From a trading perspective, in these types of games you should base your positions mainly on the market dynamics as there was no evident tendency in this match from a football perspective.

Liverpool Signings

Eventhough Benteke had a limited involvement in this match, he looked composed and I think he’ll play a key role for Liverpool this season, especially unlocking matches at Anfield. James Milner might be boring but he brings stability with his experience; one of the bright spots for Liverpool in this game was his partnership with Henderson (amazing player!) in the center of the park. About Joe Gomez enough was said already and Clyne performance suffered from the overcrowded right side, so I will reserve my opinion for another time although he was solid defensively.

Final Remarks

As a final remark, I don’t believe Rodgers will maintain this “right-side only” dynamic, otherwise they'll suffer soon as they have a tough schedule coming. 

Saturday 8 August 2015

Match review: Manchester United - Tottenham

The Premier League season has officially begun and with it comes the first match review of this blog. I intend to have this kind of post where I can be provide more insight on the teams I watch, mixing it with some trading talk. So let's begin:

Pre-game questions

When the starting lineups were announced two questions popped in my mind: what would be the positioning of Depay? And why is Pochettino adapting Eric Dier to a midfield position? So, Depay occupied a central position behind Rooney, with Mata deployed on the right side. This Depay positioning does not come naturally to him, as he played mainly in the left wing for PSV. Nonetheless, he has all the technical ability to thrive in this position, as he can have more impact in this central role, just like Gareth Bale under Andre Villas Boas tenure. Of course, this will take time as this game showed.


About Eric Dier, I have to say he is a very solid player whatever the position he plays, but this is starting to act against him, as he rarely gets a chance as central defender, which is where he can fulfill his potential.

First half – The tale of two different matches separated by the goal

Like the title says, the first half had two different periods: bG (before the goal) and aG (after the goal). First of all, and this happened all over the game, Manchester United has a big issue in their first phase of construction that was also obvious last season. When they start a play from their defense, they always have a hard time penetrating the opposition lines and creating something of notice. This was more obvious before the goal, where Tottenham was able to create two chances by pressing and recovering the ball in United's half. In this bG era, Tottenham was able to control the match and were clearly the better team on the pitch. And then Bentaleb misses a pass and Manchester United went ahead, so cruel! I don't remember Wayne Rooney touching the ball in this period and when he had his chance to score, Kyle Walker was too quick and did it by himself!


This leads to a trading issue: from a football perspective there was no reason to back Manchester United and nonetheless they scored. What can you do about it? You can live with it. This is football, where mistakes and goals against play happen a lot. Another question: if I was trading would I be backing Tottenham when the goal happened? It depends on the price and the market dynamics, like it always should. As an example, I love craft beer and Punk IPA is a very decent beer but would I buy a bottle for 20EUR? No, only if I was dying in the desert! Back to the game, in the aG era Man Utd construction problem persisted but the magnificent work of Carrick and Schneiderlin in a second pressing zone, lead to the recovery of several possessions in Tottenham´s half that could have led to the second goal. In this period, Tottenham was totally harmless, not being able to connect their play.

Second half –Van Gaal gambles a bit but Romero saves the day in the end

There is not much to say about the second half as there was no marked dominance by any of the teams, but the decision to give playing time to Schweinsteiger taking Carrick (solid performance as usual!) off the pitch and to put Valencia on, for the final stage, almost cost United two points. In the last minutes, Tottenham pushed United to its own half and Romero ended up as a hero with two good saves. As a final remark, it wasn't a very interesting match for the occasional viewer!


Manchester United signings

Darmian and Schneiderlin looked very good on the pitch and I believe they will have a massive role improving Man Utd defensive stability, especially in the away games. Romero looked shaky with the ball on his feet, but ended up being very important; of course, he is not De Gea and that comparison will haunt him for the rest of the season if the spaniard leaves for Real Madrid. Depay has great potential but if Van Gaal maintains the idea of playing in a central role, it will take time for him to deliver. Finally, Schweinsteiger looked rusty and unfit and it will be interesting to see how Van Gaal will accommodate him in the starting lineup.

Friday 7 August 2015

Oh no…it's another Premier League preview! Title contenders (Part 2 of 2)

Arsenal – Getting closer, but is it enough?

Hands down, the most pleasing team to watch in the Premier League! Their offensive system is the opposite of Chelsea’s stiff regimen, very fluid with the front players constantly exchanging positions. So why the lack of Premier League titles? Individual quality! Although their weaknesses are well hidden in the system: Monreal/Gibbs, Coquelin or Giroud/Walcott are not top players. Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly aware that the Coquelin addition to the midfield was pivotal last season and he can perfectly turn into a top player in two or three seasons. But, imagine this Arsenal team with Benzema playing upfront, William Carvalho as a defensive midfielder and Ricardo Rodriguez as a left back. Also, they are very thin in the central back position if they have injury problems. 


That said, Cech addition is wonderful as they need experienced players to inject some trust and confidence in the team, in order to overcome mental hurdles like beating Jose Mourinho's Chelsea for the first time. Trading-wise, it is possible they might be a bit underrated when playing their rivals as their history record against these teams is awful in the last years. I honestly think, this season can be a turning point for them, especially if they can sign one top player at least.

Man United – Worshiping the many-faced God!

I don't know if Louis Van Gaal is a fan of Game of Thrones but the fact is that last season his team wore many faces. Last year, it was hard to know what to expect tactically, when I was trading them: 3 defenders/4 defenders, 1 striker/2 strikers, short-passing game then Fellaini appears and they start to play the long ball game (with some success, it has to be said!), it was puzzling. At the same time, it was fascinating that, with all this tactical variance, they ended up on a morale high and pumped up for the new season. This year, Van Gaal has stated that he intends to play the 4x3x3, but I would wait to see if that's really the case. It's hard to make a preview on them, when there are still key decisions to be made in the transfer window (De Gea comes to mind!) but I can say that a long-term problem of United was finally solved: the midfield area.

To play 4x3x3, I think they need another striker, a winger and a central-defender. All being said, I take Man United as the joker of the season. From a trading perspective, all this uncertainty about them makes it hard to price them, which can lead to some value prices arising. As an example and I'm not saying that laying Man Utd pre-game or in-play tomorrow is EV+, but I look at that price and it seems a bit low for me. Bottom line: I'm very curious about Man United this year!

Final remarks

I made a short preview of the Premier League title contenders to give you an example of what I said in my second post about what you can do to prepare a match that you'll trade. The big question here is: do you know the smaller teams as well? A lot of people knows these big teams, but how many people do you know able to speak about the usual starting line-up of Crystal Palace? Not many, but even less people know how they play, who are their key players and so on. I hope you understand my point! Furthermore and making football analysis more complex, a team's key player may not be their best player. If my blog was read by a lot of people this would generate a war, but while Barcelona's key player is Lionel Messi, in my opinion Real Madrid's key player, throughout Ancelotti tenure, was not Cristiano Ronaldo but Luka Modric!

I´ll elaborate on that in the future with a post about what makes a player invaluable to a team!