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Football "Experts" 2021-22
I commented in a similar vein last year.
20 "experts" from the BBC asked to predict 1st-4th in the Premier League this year.
Total number of teams to win the League? 2. Man City and Chelsea.
Total number of teams to be top 3? 4. Add Man U and Liverpool.
Top 4? 5. 1 of the 20 has gone for Leicester to finish 4th. You know, the team that finished 1 point behind Chelsea last year. Spurs/Arsenal 0. Same for everyone else.
If 20 horseracing experts all predicted a race, for the 4 places as well as the win, would be fought entirely between 4 of the 20 horses, new experts would be appointed.
Apparently, the top 4 are all making "astute signings", while "lesser" teams are "in transition". I'd love to know the difference.
Here is what the "experts" are ignoring.
Man City. Have spent £100mill on yet another wide midfielder. The reason Man City are favourites is because their reserve midfield was already better than nearly all the rest. While their only strikers (Ferran/Jesus) look ill-suited to English football. And there is a glaring lack at Left Back. I still think they will win the league.
Chelsea. The big signing is Lukaku. Massive risk. Could finish 1st. Could also finish 10th.
Man U. Improving steadily. But note 0/20 think they will win the league.
Liverpool. Again, jury is out. Players returning from injury. But squad looks weaker than last year.
Do those 4 deserve to be favourites for top 4? Yes. 79/80 votes for top 4 from experts? Get new experts.
20 "experts" from the BBC asked to predict 1st-4th in the Premier League this year.
Total number of teams to win the League? 2. Man City and Chelsea.
Total number of teams to be top 3? 4. Add Man U and Liverpool.
Top 4? 5. 1 of the 20 has gone for Leicester to finish 4th. You know, the team that finished 1 point behind Chelsea last year. Spurs/Arsenal 0. Same for everyone else.
If 20 horseracing experts all predicted a race, for the 4 places as well as the win, would be fought entirely between 4 of the 20 horses, new experts would be appointed.
Apparently, the top 4 are all making "astute signings", while "lesser" teams are "in transition". I'd love to know the difference.
Here is what the "experts" are ignoring.
Man City. Have spent £100mill on yet another wide midfielder. The reason Man City are favourites is because their reserve midfield was already better than nearly all the rest. While their only strikers (Ferran/Jesus) look ill-suited to English football. And there is a glaring lack at Left Back. I still think they will win the league.
Chelsea. The big signing is Lukaku. Massive risk. Could finish 1st. Could also finish 10th.
Man U. Improving steadily. But note 0/20 think they will win the league.
Liverpool. Again, jury is out. Players returning from injury. But squad looks weaker than last year.
Do those 4 deserve to be favourites for top 4? Yes. 79/80 votes for top 4 from experts? Get new experts.
Comments
Those sport experts probably know that by picking the 4 market leaders in Betfair then come season end they have the best chance of looking like a good sports expert.
People like Tony Bloom and the Brentford owner helped big data get into even the smallest of leagues and odds pre match and live are remarkably efficient even there. That's why you get a lot of value bettors now. If you can find a line a few ticks off what the busiest markets say then you are good to go. It's not the wisdom of the masses, it's data analytics.
Those sports experts probably aren't experts in much of anything, they just know the crack and that their own stock will rise if they make correct predictions.
Man City, Chelsea, Man U, Liverpool, Tottenham, Leicester.
The bookies are not fools-they are the likeliest 6. But if you are looking for value, from a betting perspective, better to look elsewhere. Odds given are SkyBet's current odds on oddschecker.
Man C/Man U-nailed on. But no value. 1/100 & 1/16
Liverpool/Chelsea. Very likely top 6. But the odds look desperately unappealing. Both 1/25.
Spurs. A lot will depend on their start (not just the 1st game). 8/11 now, probably shorter soon. Tempting.
Leicester 10/11. Looks about right.
Arsenal 7/4. Probably higher soon. Looks tempting. 2-3 new signings, or a change of Manager would make that look great value. They did finish only 1 point behind Spurs last year.
Everton 3/1 (7/2 elsewhere). Great odds, given their squad and manager.
I would put money on Everton now. Getting 3/1 on what is (for me) a 7/4 shot. I would wait until the window closes before putting money on Spurs or Arsenal-for me, it will then be 1 or both.
PS-Southampton 5/2 to be relegated (3/1 elsewhere) look great odds to me.
Betfair are not primarily seeking the biggest profit. They are seeking a certain profit. There is weight attached to where the money is coming in. If serious money comes in for any team, adjustments are made. That is why, for example, if you can predict the way the rest of the transfer window will play out, some teams odds will change considerably.
I take your point about experts looking after themselves. But then some predicted Leicester would be relegated the year they won the League. There is no point paying people large sums of money just to say who the favourites are.
If the quant outputs a certain result and loads of human push odds a diff direction it will just get scalped back to its true odds by people with the best quant, probably Betfair themselves but not necessarily. Somewhere out there people are paying companies like Starlizard for their data and they pay A LOT.
Not sure if it's tragic or amazing?
The people making money in the industry now are the biggest data companies like the Brentford guy and Bloom, who are incidentally both british and both decided to buy footy clubs.
Following newspaper experts is fun thing to do but obviously worth nothing at all.
Have to say I cannot understand how owners of the data companies can also own football clubs. At 1 level, there is a risk of serious insider trading.
Tony Bloom presumably knows a lot of things about Brighton that we do not. The likely length of Lamptey's injury, the budget, the offers for ins/outs, etc. I'm sure safeguards are in place. Just like I am equally sure that there are ways round them. Not saying for a second Mr Bloom would ever take advantage. But, in poker terms, 1 of the cards might be visible...
Bloom and Brentford guy are legit fans with the liquid cash so sailed into it. They will make loadsa money and come out of looking like good guys whatever they are upto in their offices.
Imagine how many he could get should he ever be able to adapt to football here.
Jury is still out on Torres, though he's a very talented boy and think he'll do very good things for us.
No arguments whatsoever about left back.
I think we're favourites because we have the best squad and have won 3 of the last 4 league titles. That, and bookies are too scared to price us up properly (hence often being faves for the Champs League when we really shouldn't be)
Signing Lukaku is a massive risk? Based on what? He's scored plenty of goals in the PL before including for Chelsea, and comes off the back of a successful season at Inter. I'd say he's the exact opposite of a ''massive risk'' signing. Also, there is no chance Chelsea could finish 10th.
They will be top 3 and probably the team most capable of taking our title off us.
I'm not quite sure of the purpose of this post? Not a dig or anything, I just think it's quite clear who the most likely candidates to be top 4 are. You acknowledge that yourself. So of course the ''experts'' are going to say much the same.
I think more eyebrows would be raised if some experts/pundits started throwing the top 4 fringe teams into the mix (Leicester, Spurs, Arsenal, Everton). They all have a chance (maybe not Arsenal) but in reality it's very hard to look past City, United Chelsea and Liverpool in whatever order.
2nd - MAN UTD
3rd - LIVERPOOL
4th - WEST HAM
5th - MAN CITY
6th - SPURS
Chelsea to get top 4 at 1.24 seems free money to me.
Whereas Arsenal & Spurs are both 9/4. I think Arsenal & Spurs are not playing particularly well-it is Man U that are underperforming.
Chelsea are doing well. That 1.24 is now about 1.08-so it was great value. Lukaku has scored less than Jorginho. For some reason, Tuchel doesn't see him as a team player.