Jake Pearson's profitable Beat The Market column returns to preview the midweek action, attempting to identify early value in the upcoming Premier League matches.
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Football betting tips: Premier League
1pt Norwich and Aston Villa to DRAW at 12/5 (Betfair Sportsbook)
1pt Brighton and Wolves to DRAW at 23/10 (Spreadex)
Norwich v Aston Villa
The purpose of this article is to try and identify early prices that are likely to shorten as the week progresses.
That poses a bit of a problem with a full midweek fixture list, with little time from tipping to kick-off, but in all honesty, the vast majority of price movements, significant ones at least, come on the day of the match, and specifically in the couple of hours leading up to kick-off.
The two reasons for this are team news, the omission or inclusion of a surprise player can shift the odds – something known in part as Bayesian betting – but also this the time when the bigger syndicates enter the market, propelling the price in whatever direction they believe correct.
That means there is still plenty of time to identify an outlier of a price, and in the case of this match, that looks to be the DRAW at 12/5.
Pricing the draw is one of the most difficult things to do. Rating teams using various methods can give you superiorities by which the likelihood of victory can be arrived at, but the probability that two teams finish a game of football tied is one of the more vague jobs in terms of creating a tissue.
A good indicator of this is the fact that backing the draw to level stakes in every Premier League match this season would have seen you turn a profit.
Going one step further though, backing the draw in every match this term not involving a traditional ‘big six’ team (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham) would see your ROI at roughly 37%.
38% of these matches this season have ended in a draw, but the average price for such an outcome stands at 5/2, which implies just a 28% chance.
This particular match also has the added edge of Dean Smith returning to Villa Park for the first time since his dismissal.
His Norwich team have certainly been improved since he took charge, while the same can also be said about Steven Gerrard’s Aston Villa.
Smith’s side have drawn two of the five games Smith has overseen, and while Villa are yet to share the points under Gerrard, all but one of his five matches in charge have been decided by a one goal margin.
With both sides concentrating on defensive stability under their new managers, this could be a game of few chances and is likely to end in a stalemate.
Brighton v Wolves
Without blindly stepping into the realm of simply backing the DRAW in every match not involving a traditional ‘big six’ team, the logic for doing so having been explained in the above tip, backing a tie in this particular fixture certainly does make plenty of appeal, and for plenty of reasons.
Firstly, no team has drawn more games than Brighton this season, with the Seagulls sharing the points on eight occasions.
Crucially though, backing the draw in Brighton games early doors would have seen you identify an average of +1.27% expected value per game against the closing price.
Also, only in Burnley matches would backing the draw to level stakes have returned more profit than backing the draw in matches involving Graham Potter’s men.
As far as Wolves are concerned, they may have shared the points on only three occasions this season, but two of those came when on the road, and it arguably could have been more.
Wolves have drawn 18.75% of their matches this season, but by taking the chances they have created and allowed in each individual match, we can calculate the probability of them winning, drawing and losing each game.
Using this expected goals data, Wolves should have theoretically drawn 22% of their matches, not a huge difference, but enough to further encourage backing a stalemate in this fixture.
These two both have very middling expected goal differences, with Brighton currently at +0.6 xGD, and Wolves at -1.7 xGD.
There are numerous different conclusions that these figures can be used to arrive at, but effectively, it can mean that the games they play are evenly contested, with chances equally shared on average, perfect examples being Brighton’s last two matches, where the xG totals finished at 1.32-1.37 and 1.64-1.66.
Bringing in recent form as well, Brighton have drawn five of their last six, while Wanderers have shared the points in two of their last four.
Odds correct at 1200 GMT (013/12/21)
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