I wasn’t watching either game, wasn’t listening to on-line radio commentary but with 42 minutes gone in the first half in Spain, I laid the Half Time 0-0 at 1.15, the goal was scored in the 44th minute.
Twenty minutes later, around the 50th minute in the Italian game, I laid the 1.5 goal market at 1.45, Juventus then scored and I greened up for a nice profit.
Now, how did I know to open these trades? Am I psychic? Can I see into the future? No. Yet, with no pictures or live commentary, I made two profitable trades at very low liabilities. How did I do it? How often have you been in a trade and you’re really not sure how it’s going to play out? It’s not going your way right now, you have cover but you want to know if you should start making moves to ensure a scratch trade.
What to look for? The answer to both questions is in-play statistics.
We all use pre-game statistics to help us decide upon and plan our trades but how often do you use them in-play? Maybe all the time, but if you don’t, you should. Many traders will trade a game they have no access to, pictures or otherwise. Nothing wrong in that but we have all traded out only to see the goals we wanted go in. Had we kept a close eye on the stats we might have known they were coming. I learnt these two statistics from a very well known trader,
• On average there will be a goal for every 7-10 shots.
• For every 4 – 6 corners there should, on average, be one goal.
The above are not water tight but, when you apply additional game facts, they become even more reliable. If 7-10 shots have been taken but only 1 or 2 were on target, I would ignore the stat. (Bolton v Wigan. FA Cup 29/01/11 19 shots, 3 on target, final score 0-0) However, if, like last night’s Spanish game, there had been 13 shots with 8 on target, I would be entirely confident and happy about placing a trade in the market. Using the “Shots On target” aspect in conjunction with the corners stat works in the same way. There are odd occasions when this stat falls down. Strangely, they tend to involve Man City. This season’s games against Tottenham and Arsenal spring to mind. There are also teams whose clinical finishing means their shot to goal ratio is lower, but I’ve had many profitable trades just using these two stats on their own and now you can too. More football trading articles are available from tradingfootball.eu – The fastest growing on-line sports trading community.
