Typical.....

I feel like last night's games were typical of the way this season is shaping up I think. Overall, it was a losing night for my ratings with only 3 winners from 10 games (2 teams lost late goals to only draw) but the selective systems did OK in the end.

There were 3 key games for me and they ended with one winner, one draw and one loser. The winner and the draw were the two most important games of the evening, so it ensured I could make a small profit on the night overall.

It's very frustrating at the minute as things aren't exactly going to plan and I've been treading water (or slipping backwards) for over 6 weeks but I think I just have to stick with it and hope things take a turn for the better. I can't help but feel I'm hitting too many draws at the moment with the systems although until recently, I've never had the data to look at it. I've now spent a week or so gathering this additional data and adding it to my spreadsheets.

Expect some analysis in the near future on the impact of the draw........

In the meantime, below are the results from last night (the site where I get my game data from had the wrong date for the Everton game. I've put the Everton game down as a loser in system 16 to allow me to post my results. If they win tonight, I'll adjust it in my results in my sheets).

Overall, 2pts profit on the single bet systems but the 'usual' large loss on the multiple bets!

Value Bets

I don’t want to write a long post here as it’s Monday night and Monday’s are always a busy day for me with juggling football stuff with work.

Someone asked a question today about how to find the ‘value’ bets from my systems. I suggest if anyone wants some background about this, they read my historical results post but in summary, all the value bets appear on system 6 and system 21. These are the two base systems using my ratings and therefore, every value bet appears on here.

To find all the value bets in any set of fixtures, you would just look at system 6 and system 21 and pick out each game that appears.

The question is…. do I recommend anyone following all of the value bets? Quite simply, the answer is NO!

Firstly, there are too many bets and secondly, the whole point of having so many systems is to allow me to narrow down the value bets to get my best bets.

If you look at the season’s results or even the historical results, system 6 and system 21 aren’t the best systems to follow and therefore, why would you follow systems that aren’t going to give you the best results? I see system 6 and 21 as a way to show all the value bets but as for following these systems, I don’t suggest anyone do this.

Hence, why would anyone follow system 6 when systems 7 and 8 are better and likewise, why follow system 21 when systems 22 and 23 are better?

Taking that into account though, why follow systems 7/8/22/23 when systems 7-21 etc. are better long-term?

The truth is, I don’t know which systems are the best to follow and that is the reason I’m tracking a lot of live systems this season. If I thought I knew which system I should follow, I’d only have one system but so far, I’m still not sure which system or group of systems should be followed to maximise returns.

The below picture shows how the TFA ratings have performed in past seasons and also shows the impact the recent run has had on my systems. February was the worst month the ratings have ever had but they have bounced back already this month, so I’m hoping February was a blip!

The data in this picture doesn’t include Saturday’s results but I don’t have my spreadsheets fully updated yet after the weekend. It was a small losing day for my ratings though.

Any questions, get in touch.

Midweek Bets

Not as much action as I thought I might have this week but there were a few teams that were close to a bet based on my ratings but the odds are a bit low, so they've missed the cut-off from a value perspective.

The two big games are in League 1 and League 2 this midweek with the systems favouring Peterboro and Port Vale in their respective games. After that, you're looking at Portsmouth as the next best bet and when you look at the odds of these 3 teams (over 2/1 on average), you can see it is going to be an interesting night tomorrow night.

Someone has left an anonymous comment today regarding how to find the value bets, so I'll do a quick post on it tonight just to make things clear for anyone who hasn't read the historical results post!


The Football Analyst Bets for 8th March

System 6
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
08/03/2011 19:45 Championship Bristol City v Portsmouth Portsmouth 3.00 Ladbrokes
08/03/2011 19:45 Championship Doncaster v Coventry Coventry 3.60 SJ
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Notts County v Peterboro Peterboro 2.93 Pinnacle
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Accrington v Stockport Accrington 1.67 Ladbrokes
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Shrewsbury v Port Vale Port Vale 3.60 Blue Sq
08/03/2011 19:45 Bsq Prem Rushden v Forest Green Rushden 1.62 Tote

System 7
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Notts County v Peterboro Peterboro 2.93 Pinnacle
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Accrington v Stockport Accrington 1.67 Ladbrokes
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Shrewsbury v Port Vale Port Vale 3.60 Blue Sq
08/03/2011 19:45 Bsq Prem Rushden v Forest Green Rushden 1.62 Tote

System 8
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Notts County v Peterboro Peterboro 2.93 Pinnacle
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Accrington v Stockport Accrington 1.67 Ladbrokes
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Shrewsbury v Port Vale Port Vale 3.60 Blue Sq

System 9
None

System 21
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
08/03/2011 19:45 Championship Bristol City v Portsmouth Portsmouth 3.00 Ladbrokes
08/03/2011 19:45 Championship Crystal Palace v Cardiff Cardiff 2.20 SJ
08/03/2011 19:45 Championship Hull v Burnley Burnley 3.00 Ladbrokes
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Exeter v Bournemouth Bournemouth 2.40 Pinnacle
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Notts County v Peterboro Peterboro 2.93 Pinnacle
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Shrewsbury v Port Vale Port Vale 3.60 Blue Sq
08/03/2011 19:45 Bsq Prem Kidderminster v Crawley Crawley 2.25 Corals

System 22
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
08/03/2011 19:45 Championship Bristol City v Portsmouth Portsmouth 3.00 Ladbrokes
08/03/2011 19:45 Championship Crystal Palace v Cardiff Cardiff 2.20 SJ
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Exeter v Bournemouth Bournemouth 2.40 Pinnacle
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Notts County v Peterboro Peterboro 2.93 Pinnacle
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Shrewsbury v Port Vale Port Vale 3.60 Blue Sq

System 23
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Notts County v Peterboro Peterboro 2.93 Pinnacle
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Shrewsbury v Port Vale Port Vale 3.60 Blue Sq

System 6-21
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
08/03/2011 19:45 Championship Bristol City v Portsmouth Portsmouth 3.00 Ladbrokes
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Notts County v Peterboro Peterboro 2.93 Pinnacle
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Shrewsbury v Port Vale Port Vale 3.60 Blue Sq

System 6-22
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
08/03/2011 19:45 Championship Bristol City v Portsmouth Portsmouth 3.00 Ladbrokes
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Notts County v Peterboro Peterboro 2.93 Pinnacle
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Shrewsbury v Port Vale Port Vale 3.60 Blue Sq

System 7-21
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Notts County v Peterboro Peterboro 2.93 Pinnacle
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Shrewsbury v Port Vale Port Vale 3.60 Blue Sq

System 7-22
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Notts County v Peterboro Peterboro 2.93 Pinnacle
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Shrewsbury v Port Vale Port Vale 3.60 Blue Sq

System 8-21
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Notts County v Peterboro Peterboro 2.93 Pinnacle
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Shrewsbury v Port Vale Port Vale 3.60 Blue Sq

System 8-22
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Notts County v Peterboro Peterboro 2.93 Pinnacle
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Shrewsbury v Port Vale Port Vale 3.60 Blue Sq

System 16
Bet 1
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Notts County v Peterboro Peterboro 2.88
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Accrington v Stockport Accrington 1.66
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Shrewsbury v Port Vale Port Vale 3.40
08/03/2011 19:45 Bsq Prem Rushden v Forest Green Rushden 1.57
08/03/2011 19:45 Premiership Everton v Birmingham Everton 1.53 VC
Any 3,4 and all 5 = 16 Bets

System 17
Bet 1
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
08/03/2011 19:45 Championship Bristol City v Portsmouth Portsmouth 2.88
08/03/2011 19:45 Championship Crystal Palace v Cardiff Cardiff 2.05
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Exeter v Bournemouth Bournemouth 2.38
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Notts County v Peterboro Peterboro 2.88
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Shrewsbury v Port Vale Port Vale 3.40 VC
Any 2,3,4 and all 5 = 26 Bets

System 18
Bet 1
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Notts County v Peterboro Peterboro 2.88
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Shrewsbury v Port Vale Port Vale 3.40
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Accrington v Stockport Accrington 1.66 VC
Any 2 and all 3 = 4 Bets

System 19
None

System 20
Bet 1
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
08/03/2011 19:45 Championship Bristol City v Portsmouth Portsmouth 2.88
08/03/2011 19:45 League 1 Notts County v Peterboro Peterboro 2.88
08/03/2011 19:45 League 2 Shrewsbury v Port Vale Port Vale 3.40 VC
Any 2 and all 3 = 4 Bets

33% Strike Rate

The title of the post relates to the fact that there were 15 bets this weekend defined as value by the TFA ratings. It ended up with 5 wins, 4 draws and 6 losses. With only a 33% strike rate, that is going to ensure the systems make a loss overall on most occasions. A poor weekend for my ratings.

I haven’t had the time to analyse the results for the past 6-8 weeks in much depth as yet (well, more depth than usual!) but I’m really keen to see how many games have finished in a draw. As those in the TFA forum know, I stupidly don’t record the results of each game in my spreadsheets. I just record win/loss against each selection. Hence, any work I want to carry out involving the draw will involve me going back to gather this additional data and adding it to my results. I’ve been meaning to do it since the start of the season really and it was always on the cards for me to do this during the Summer but I might try to bring this project forward a little after the recent run of results.

At the odds I’m playing at on the Aways especially, you expect to hit a high number of draws when the away side doesn’t win but over the past 2 months or so, I’m sure this number is very high and much higher than the long-term average. Obviously, it’s only a hypothesis at the moment but I’ll hopefully get time over the next few weeks to collect this additional data to analyse.

Anyway, on to yesterday. A loss of 11.8pts on the single bets with nearly all the systems suffering a small loss. A late goal for Fulham ensured it wasn’t a total disaster but overall, not the best day the systems have had but thankfully, not the worst day!

The multiple bets suffered badly from draws on a couple of systems. System 16 had 2 winners and 3 draws and system 17 had 2 winners and 2 draws from the 5 bets. The other systems all had more losers than winners I think. Overall, a loss of nearly 60pts on these systems on Saturday.

I’ve already started looking at the fixtures for the midweek and Tuesday has the potential to be a busy night with nearly full cards in the Championship down to the Bsq Prem, so I’ll be back with any bets tomorrow night for these games.

Results This Season

Richard has left a comment this morning asking for the results for each system so far this season. I meant to say this on my last post but if anyone has any questions at all about the system results or want me to look at some sort of analysis, just post up a comment. I’m pretty efficient with Excel and I have every game for all systems analysed going back over 4 seasons, so I can usually look at the results any way I want very quickly.

Below are the results for this season and historical seasons for the single bet systems and multiple bet systems. I’ll always need to show these results separately as I have a different sheet for tracking each system and I don’t like to sum together the multiple bets with the single bets as they can’t really be compared.





I don’t want to draw any conclusions until the end of this season about which systems are underperforming or overperforming this season. This season is purely an experiment to see how the systems do and I haven’t even touched any of the parameter weightings in the model this season to try to improve things as I believe that any changes should only take place in the Summer each season. Hence, whatever I do this season can be improved upon next season I hope.

I also like to look at the performance of the systems by Home and Away selections as each season, these appear to behave quite differently in the systems. Some seasons, Homes appear to perform better but in other seasons, Aways are the best performers.



One thing that can be said is that I think it is easier to find value with Aways rather than Homes although I personally feel more comfortable backing Homes rather than Aways but that’s more of a personal thing.

Anyway, I hope that’s answered your question Richard? I hope as time goes on, people ask more questions on here and can hopefully start to understand these systems a bit more.

Weekend Bets

Well, the eagle eyed amongst you will have spotted I've added a list of blogs at the side that I read. I can honestly say that I read all 7 of these blogs at the moment. I'm sure as time progresses, other blogs will get added (that I probably won't read!) but those 7 blogs that I first added onto here are blogs definitely worth following for one reason or another.

I'm not going to go into detail about what blogs are what but the 7 blogs I would suggest that are worth reading are written by Rowan, Cassini, Mark, Iain, Kodagira, Mat and Paul.

So far, I've kept this blog quite quiet in the sense I haven't gone out of my way to attract readers here but that was more to do with a lack of confidence in the football systems more than anything else! My only readers so far have been friends, family, work colleagues and the guys across at the TFA forum who are following the bets also. I didn't feel the need to have the blog world looking at what I was doing on a weekly basis but after 6 months of proofed results for the systems, it feels like I can be slightly more confident now!

After the run the systems experienced in February, I don't think it can be any worse than that, so now feels like as good a time as any to open my work up to criticism a bit more. (I'm sure Cassini will want a pop at me at some point regarding my ratings work!)

I think the time has come when I need to show off some of the work I've been doing for the past 15 months and I don't mind people seeing how the last few months of the season goes from here anyway.

If anyone has any questions to ask at any time, please leave a comment and I'll answer you when I can.

Anyway, back to the reason for the blog post.

There are a fair few weekend bets this weekend but the risk looks fairly spread across the portfolio of systems. There aren't too many teams appearing on system 8 and 23 which does tend to make me think the bets may not be the highest standard overall this weekend but we'll see what happens.

The Football Analyst Bets for 5th March

System 6
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Fulham v Blackburn Fulham 1.75 PP
05/03/2011 15:00 Championship Coventry v Bristol City Coventry 2.25 Ladbrokes
05/03/2011 15:00 Championship Derby v Barnsley Derby 2.10 VC
05/03/2011 15:00 Championship Notts Forest v Hull Notts Forest 1.81 Pinnacle
05/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Tranmere Charlton 1.73 Ladbrokes
05/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Hartlepool v Brentford Brentford 3.00 Betfred
05/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Peterboro v Exeter Peterboro 1.75 Tote
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Hereford v Bury Bury 2.40 VC
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Accrington Accrington 2.90 B365
05/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Tamworth v Mansfield Mansfield 2.70 Tote
05/03/2011 15:00 SPL Inverness v Motherwell Motherwell 2.80 B365

System 7
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Fulham v Blackburn Fulham 1.75 PP
05/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Hartlepool v Brentford Brentford 3.00 Betfred
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Accrington Accrington 2.90 B365
05/03/2011 15:00 SPL Inverness v Motherwell Motherwell 2.80 B365

System 8
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Fulham v Blackburn Fulham 1.75 PP
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Accrington Accrington 2.90 B365

System 9
None

System 21
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Fulham v Blackburn Fulham 1.75 PP
05/03/2011 15:00 Championship Watford v Millwall Millwall 3.20 Corals
05/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Colchester v Southampton Southampton 2.10 Corals
05/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Hartlepool v Brentford Brentford 3.00 Betfred
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Hereford v Bury Bury 2.40 VC
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Accrington Accrington 2.90 B365
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Stockport v Oxford Oxford 2.20 Ladbrokes
05/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Altrincham v Gateshead Gateshead 2.20 Betfred
05/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Tamworth v Mansfield Mansfield 2.70 Tote
05/03/2011 15:00 SPL Inverness v Motherwell Motherwell 2.80 B365

System 22
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Fulham v Blackburn Fulham 1.75 PP
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Hereford v Bury Bury 2.40 VC
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Accrington Accrington 2.90 B365
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Stockport v Oxford Oxford 2.20 Ladbrokes
05/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Altrincham v Gateshead Gateshead 2.20 Betfred
05/03/2011 15:00 SPL Inverness v Motherwell Motherwell 2.80 B365

System 23
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Stockport v Oxford Oxford 2.20 Ladbrokes

System 6-21
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Fulham v Blackburn Fulham 1.75 PP
05/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Hartlepool v Brentford Brentford 3.00 Betfred
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Hereford v Bury Bury 2.40 VC
05/03/2011 15:00 SPL Inverness v Motherwell Motherwell 2.80 B365
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Accrington Accrington 2.90 B365
05/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Tamworth v Mansfield Mansfield 2.70 Tote

System 6-22
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Fulham v Blackburn Fulham 1.75 PP
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Hereford v Bury Bury 2.40 VC
05/03/2011 15:00 SPL Inverness v Motherwell Motherwell 2.80 B365
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Accrington Accrington 2.90 B365

System 7-21
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Fulham v Blackburn Fulham 1.75 PP
05/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Hartlepool v Brentford Brentford 3.00 Betfred
05/03/2011 15:00 SPL Inverness v Motherwell Motherwell 2.80 B365
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Accrington Accrington 2.90 B365

System 7-22
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Fulham v Blackburn Fulham 1.75 PP
05/03/2011 15:00 SPL Inverness v Motherwell Motherwell 2.80 B365
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Accrington Accrington 2.90 B365

System 8-21
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Fulham v Blackburn Fulham 1.75 PP
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Accrington Accrington 2.90 B365

System 8-22
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Fulham v Blackburn Fulham 1.75 PP
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Accrington Accrington 2.90 B365

System 16
Bet 1
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Arsenal v Sunderland Arsenal 1.44
05/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Charlton v Tranmere Charlton 1.70
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Fulham v Blackburn Fulham 1.73
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Accrington Accrington 2.88
05/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Peterboro v Exeter Peterboro 1.73 VC
Any 3,4 and all 5 = 16 Bets

System 17
Bet 1
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 Bsq Prem Altrincham v Gateshead Gateshead 2.10
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Fulham v Blackburn Fulham 1.73
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Hereford v Bury Bury 2.38
05/03/2011 15:00 SPL Inverness v Motherwell Motherwell 2.80
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Accrington Accrington 2.90 B365
Any 2,3,4 and all 5 = 26 Bets

System 18
Bet 1
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Fulham v Blackburn Fulham 1.70
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Accrington Accrington 2.80
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Stockport v Oxford Oxford 2.20 Tote
Any 2 and all 3 = 4 Bets

System 19
Bet 1
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Fulham v Blackburn Fulham 1.73
05/03/2011 15:00 League 1 Hartlepool v Brentford Brentford 2.88
05/03/2011 15:00 SPL Inverness v Motherwell Motherwell 2.75
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Accrington Accrington 2.88 VC
Any 2,3 and all 4 = 11 Bets

System 20
Bet 1
Date Time League Game Selection Odds Bookies
05/03/2011 15:00 Premiership Fulham v Blackburn Fulham 1.73
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Hereford v Bury Bury 2.88
05/03/2011 15:00 SPL Inverness v Motherwell Motherwell 2.75
05/03/2011 15:00 League 2 Lincoln v Accrington Accrington 2.88 VC
Any 2,3 and all 4 = 11 Bets

A new dawn......(maybe!)

Well, a new month dawns and for the first time in what feels like an eternity (only been 6 weeks!), the systems have bounced back to life and made a nice profit last night.

The night centred on 4 big priced away sides and thankfully for me, 3 of the 4 sides managed to win. The Gillingham game finished 1-1 in the end to spoil the night as they let down the multiple bets but overall, a good night.

I'm struggling in my head to work out how much exactly the systems have bounced back as my spreadsheets are not fully up to date with February results yet. I feel like I need to write the February review and that will allow me to forget a little about that month and then try to look forward. It's really easy at times to get too caught up in the short-term with the losses you've suffered and then forget about the future.

I'll hopefully get my sheets up to date later today and then post the February review up. All I know is that February is the worst month most of the systems have ever had, so I'll be interested to see how much profit was lost this season last month in terms of points. It was a lot in monetary terms, I know that much for sure!