The return of the premier league (and my bad luck)

So the premier league was back from its break and I decided that it would be a good time to continue with my betting posts series.

The bet

Everton vs West Ham – draw
Stoke vs Burnley – Stoke
Newcastle vs QPR – Newcastle

The results

For the Everton game I wasn’t sure wether to go for an Everton win or a draw I went for the draw as it was at a good price and both teams seem to be pretty even in terms of form. Lukaku scored at 26 mins making it 1-0. I wasn’t worried at the time as I knew that there was still time for West Ham to come back and get the equaliser. The equaliser came at 56 minutes after a deflected Zarate shot went in. The lead only lasted 17 minutes Everton went back in front and ruined my treble.

Stoke went 2-0 down early, and weren’t able to come back. They scored one in the first half, but it wasn’t enough, Burnley were able to hold on and take the three points.

The only game I got right was the Newcastle one, but by that time it didn’t even matter anymore.

So far
Placed: 4.00
Returned: 0.00

Conclusion
Either I don’t know enough about football to do this or it is too difficult, I’m going to go with it being too hard! Hopefully I might actually get a return next time i do it!

The Not so Fantastic Four

After conceding four to City in our last game, I’m going to look at the four main problems with the Spurs at the moment.

Lamela

I do not normally like to say a bad word about lamela, he hasn’t had much time at the club, but I do feel he needs to improve. He’s to blame for the goal against Arsenal, the first against City and arguably the first penalty (although I would’ve had it down as a dive). He certainly has some quality, but he’s not showing it at the moment and his mistakes are showing to be costly. I feel his place should be given to someone else, until he can prove he deserves it.

Individual errors

Time and time again you see our players make mistakes. I’ve just singled out Lamela, but he’s not the only one, many others make mistakes that lead to goals. This is something that needs to be stopped, otherwise points will be thrown away, and there won’t be any chance of us getting top 4.

No consistent striker

We don’t have a striker that scores regularly. Adebayor literally scores when he wants, if he can be bothered he is brilliant, if he isn’t bothered, he is terrible. Soldado proved he is a good player, with his performance against City, but he still hasn’t got his goal scoring record on track. He missed a penalty, but had a much better overall game than Adebayor has had recently. We really do need to buy a striker in January.

Mentality

We need to sort it out in two ways.

The first is the fans. They treat Spurs as a top 4 club, which we are not. When a player misplaces a pass, there’s moans around the stadium, the players are not perfect, we as the fans, need to get off their backs and start supporting them. I really think the atmosphere needs to improve, it can only have a positive impact on the players. If we stop having such a high expectation it will take the pressure off the players and help them to play well.

The players also need to change their mentality. When we are down by a goal or two the players seem to almost give up – it doesn’t seem like they want to try to make a comeback. If you look at the Man City game, we did initially do well to equalise, but then at 3-1 we didn’t go for it anymore, whether this was because we were a man down I don’t know. There was one point that stood out to me the most, Townsend had run to the City half, but there wasn’t anyone in the box, Eriksen and Soldado were the closest but neither were in a good position. It’s almost as if the players had given up hope for the game by that point. Maybe if the atmosphere was better, it would rally the players more in these situations and make them want to keep going.

Why Soldado IS a £26 million player

Despite how poor he has been during his time, I still think he has got the quality that warranted the fee we paid.

The problem
The problem is something that has been pointed out time and time again: he doesn’t get any service. You will often see him drifting out wide, just to get a touch of the ball. The problem is, he needs to be in the box, he needs be waiting there ready to pounce on an opportunity and capitalise on it. Being a lone striker makes it harder because he can’t do that, he has to be more involved.

Solution
Selling him is NOT an option. If we sold him to pretty much any team he would score a lot more then he does now. This is especially true if we sold him to a team like Arsenal, they can’t a high amount of chances in a game, and supply their striker quite regularly. When they were relying on Sanogo, you could see they needed a striker that could actually finish, and they did buy another one.

I don’t think we do need to buy a new striker, I just think we need to change our style of play to help Soldado out and make sure he is getting the supply he needs to score goals.

Conclusion
Soldado isn’t terrible, he just needs much more support from the rest of the team, and this something that will need to be addressed by Poch if we want any chance of challenging for one of those top 4 spots.

Thank you for reading the 15th post on my blog! As always Id love it if you could share, comment etc as that helps me out greatly.

Spurs vs WBA and general review

After the West Brom game I thought it was necessary to share my thoughts on the game, and the season so far.

First half
In the first half we seemed to struggle to do anything, most of the time we were just hitting long hopeful balls to Adebayor, which didn’t go very well. West Brom had the better chances.

Second half
We tended to pass the ball into the middle and then get crowded out. Lamela was constantly asking for the ball, but didn’t have many options when receiving it. West brom scored from a corner, no one was marking properly and they scored.

Our performances
From what I’ve seen so far, we can keep the ball fairly well and not make too many mistakes, although when we play out of defence, it does seem to be quite poor. Lamela wants the ball all the time and wants to do well which is great. Chadli is very inconsistent, sometimes he will play well, sometimes he will be invisible. What seems to be our key problem is we don’t have someone that will take a shot, everyone is looking for a pass, that’s what we miss from Defoe or even Townsend. If we don’t shoot we can’t score.

Atmosphere
Our atmosphere at Spurs still isn’t as good as it should be and I pin it down to one thing, the fans expectations. The fans seem to have a mentality of a top 4 club, but currently we are not one. This leads the fans to get frustrated easily as a top 4 club should be doing better. Until we get top 4 on a regular basis, we can’t afford to have this mentality as it will lead to disappointment.

What our aims should be
We don’t have much of a chance of getting top 4 this year, with the amount of teams competing for it. I think we should aim for a trophy, wether that be the europa league or the fa cup, any trophy would make it a successful season.

A “Spursy” treble

I did another treble for this game week, continuing my series of betting each week and then writing about how bad it worked out to be.

This weeks picks
Spurs, Southampton and Leister all to win.

Stake: 1.00
Potential returns: 13.90

The results

Southampton comfortably won their game 4-0 meaning that I had easily got one game right.

Leicester won 1-0 despite only having one shot on target. I had a feeling that Leicester would win, after seeing their performances in the previous games, and it turned out to be a very good call.

Lastly I bet on Spurs. I don’t normally do it and I won’t be doing it again anytime soon. After leading 2-1 some terrible defending leading to a Harry Kane own goal caused it to finish 2-2 ruining my treble.

So far
Total placed: 3.00
Total returned: 0.00

Conclusion
Don’t bet on Spurs, they’re one of the only clubs that will draw with a team that only had one shot on target.

Tottenham Transfers 2014/15 summer overview

As the window has come to a close, I’m going to look how it went for Spurs.

Ins

Davis + Vorm (Siggy + £3.5mil)
Eric Dier (£4mil)
Yedlin (£2.5mil)
Fazio (£8mil)
Stambouli (£4.7mil)

Total spent: £22.7mil

Outs

We made quite a lot of transfers out, I’ll just include the key ones here.

Livermore (£8mil)
Falque (£4mil)
Dawson (£6mil)
Coulilbaly (£1.5mil)
Obika (£200k)
Fryers (£3mil)
Sandro (£10mil)

Total Returned: £32.7mil

Thoughts

We did the right thing selling Livermore and Sandro as neither were really necessary anymore, so to get a total of £18mil for both of them is pretty impressive. We then bought Stambouli for around £4.7mil which is a bargain, it definitely looks like we’ve improved our midfield with those transfers.

Defence wise we did well to offload Dawson and get a good amount of money for him. We also got a decent return on Fryers seeing as he is no longer needed. Dier has already proved to be worth what we paid, and I’m sure Davis will be too. We’ve also got Fazio and Yedlin (he’s been sent back on loan for now) so our defence has definitely been boosted.

Offensively we were finally able to get rid of Obika and we got a decent amount of money for him. We also sold Falque which wasn’t much of a surprise. We did sell Coulilbaly which seemed quite strange after the fact he supposedly had some potential to do well at the club. We didn’t buy any forwards which means if Ade gets injured we only have Soldado, who still doesn’t seem to be able to score, and Kane, who’s isn’t good enough to play at such a high level.

Overall it was a good window, but I think we should’ve got a striker, we will see how it works out without buying one.

‘Arry Redknapp’s (not so) triffik treble

For this weeks bet I was able to speak to Harry himself. I saw him near Tottenham ahead of this weekend’s game and he was kind enough to bring his window down to talk to me.

I started by thanking him for taking the time to talk to me, to which he said “no problem at all mate, you’re one of the propa people in football, not like most of the journalists these days”. I thanked him for his compliment and went on to ask him who he’s backing this week…

The bet

“I’ve gone for Millwall for my first team, they’re in triffik form and I can’t see Rotherham beating them today. I’ve also gone for Swansea, they put in a triffik performance last week, winning at Old Trafford, they’ve also got triffik players like siggy in their team, Burnley won’t get a point ‘ere! My last team is Villa, they played triffik last week and I can see them winning again.”

I thanked him but asked him why he didn’t even mention that his QPR team were playing against his old team Tottenham this weekend. He replied saying “well it’ll be a tough one to call, Spurs are a triffik team with triffik players but they’re not a top 4 side like when I was managing them before I got sacked, but that’s football, I’ve moved on to QPR and I’ve got some triffik players ‘ere and it could be a close game”

I thanked Redknapp for taking his time out to talk to me, he put his window back up and left.

Results

Villa drew against Newcastle meaning the bet was over before it even began, a 0-0 stalemate meaning the backing of Villa was incorrect.

Swansea continued their impressive start to the season with a win, meaning at least one prediction was correct.

Millwall lost 1-0 to Rotherham meaning another incorrect result.

Conclusion
After another week of doing poorly, I have come to the conclusion that I am cursing any team that is included in my bet, therefore I will be betting on Arsenal from now on! All jokes aside I think I need to do more research before I lose all my money.

Profit/loss

Placed: 2.00
Winnings: 0.00
Profit/loss: -2.00

Accumulator-Start of a dream

The season came underway on Saturday, and what better way to start it off than putting some money on hoping to make a nice profit.

The bet

I had Spurs, Everton and Fulham all to win. I also had QPR to draw their game.

Stake: 1.00
Potential return: 26.31

West Ham vs Tottenham Hotspur

The first half didn’t start very well, but there was a key turning point early into it. Kyle Naughton gave away a penalty and got sent off as a result. It was a penalty but a red card was very harsh, and made it difficult for us to play with one less player on the pitch. Noble missed the penalty, after having scored 10 penalties consecutively previously. Dier moved to right back and Capoue went to centre back. The game got better for us upon the arrival of Andros Townsend, he was one of the few players that was willing to take a shot at goal. Then Collins got sent off for having received two yellows. This evened out the game as each had now had one sent off. Right at the end of the game Downing was sure to score, but Lloris saved us, yet again. Shortly after, Dier was put through from a pass by Harry Kane,he then got around the keeper and scored! A 90th minute goal on his debut kept my accumulator alive.

Leicester vs Everton

McGeady opened the scoring on the 20th minute mark, with a quality finish in the top corner, avoiding the defenders that were standing on the line trying to stop him. An equaliser came almost straight after, on 22 minutes a corner was whipped in, the ball bounced around a bit, but then Ulloa was able to score making it 1-1. Naismith then scored right on the brink of half time with another good finish. Everton lead at half time. For the 2nd half it seemed as if my accumulator was going to continue but then at the end, with only 5 minutes left of play, Leicester equalised, the accumulator was ruined.

QPR vs Hull

The goal came in the 52nd minute from a corner. There was no one at the back post and Ferdinand didn’t stay with his man, this cost QPR a goal, Hull lead 1-0. QPR got a penalty late on, and missed it, this was justice though as it clearly wasn’t a penalty. Another part of my accumulator wrong.

Fulham vs Millwall

Millwall scored after a failed clearance by Scott Parker, and Fulham were unable to get a goal back, let alone the two they needed. Thankfully it wasn’t just Fulham that ruined my chances of winning any money this week.

Overall

The season started with a series of unpredictable results, I blame this for my accumulator being pretty dire. I intend to turn this into a weekly thing, and seeing how much money I spend and make over the course of the season.

So far

Placed: 1.00
Returned: 0.00

Thank you for reading this post. I’ve reached a milestone, this was my tenth post! Many thanks to everyone who’s read it, commented on it, and shared it. You can contact me on twitter: @sneeky_09 or via email: fernandesfootball@gmail.com

Schalke review + West Ham preview

After the 2-1 victory against the German club, I take a look at the game and what’s to come, with the opening game of the season.

The Schalke game

The start of game was very positive, fast passing, and a lot of movement off the ball. When it was lost, the players pressed high and quickly, trying to win the ball back quickly.

We created a fair amount of chances, but the main occurrence was the players being caught offside. What seemed to be the problem would be the player creating a good run, but it being spotted too late and therefore hitting a pass to an offside player. It isn’t too much of a problem as the players will eventually be more in sync with each other and learn when someone is going to make a run. They will hopefully also learn to spot and make the pass earlier on.

After the start of the second half, several substitutions were made and it really affected the game, and not for the better. Both Harry Kane and Soldado came on, neither performing particularly well. Soldado did score, but even him himself laughed upon seeing the replay. Kane failed to take his chances several times and showed he doesn’t really have the quality to be featured in the squad as often as he is. Soldado did some impressive passing and had great link up play as he always does, however the problem is we bought him to score goals, and so far he hasn’t been good enough.

The main problem with Pochettino’s style is it really doesn’t suit Soldado which means we aren’t really ever going to get the best out of him. The style of play that is being encouraged, requires the striker to move about, including out to the channels. You don’t want Soldado going out wide, he’s a poacher, he needs to be in the box.

The only other problem I’ve seen, is long balls, it seems we force teams to do it with how we press, but if their player gets on the end of it, it causes us problems. This leads me onto my next point…

West Ham

We could end up losing to West Ham just because of our weakness to long balls. West Ham play long ball football all the time, they managed to beat us last time with it, they just could again.

But having only won one pre season game I don’t think it’s likely they will beat us!

Thank you for reading the 9th post on my blog, send me feedback via twitter my username is @sneeky_09 or via email: fernandesfootball@gmail.com

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ITKs

With the season still seeming like a long way away, and only pre season matches to entertain ourselves many people end up spending their time on twitter following accounts known as ITK accounts. These accounts claim to be “in the know” and their aim is to post transfers before you will see them anywhere else. I don’t think these accounts are reliable but I still think they can be worth following.

Their Sources

Most of the time they seem to just take information off each other which obviously isn’t as reliable as sources such as sky sports etc. It also seems that they just make educated guesses based on other news and what agents have come out and said, which again isn’t always fully reliable.

Accounts I’ve seen

I once followed one of the first itk accounts known as agent itk, and at first it seemed like he knew what he was talking about, but then he made a promise to spurs fans, a promise that Leandro Damiao was coming to spurs. That didn’t happen and he was humiliated.

There was also a Chelsea dedicated itk account a couple of years ago that said Hazard would go to Chelsea before he went there. He got it right and people thought that meant he was trustworthy. He later came out saying that he made the account for a laugh over the summer and getting transfers correct was just a lucky guess.

Overall

Overall I would say it might be worth your time following these types of accounts because it helps you to keep up to date with the latest transfer gossip, and not miss out on any rumours. I wouldn’t use for anything more than that though, don’t take their word, and believe what they say will happen, just use it to get an idea of what’s going on in the footballing world.

Thank you for reading the 8th post on my blog, send me feedback via twitter my username is @sneeky_09 or via email: fernandesfootball@gmail.com

As well as feedback It is highly appreciated if you can share my blog, I’m aiming for 600 views over the next week or so, let’s see if it’s possible!