Other games

I have had an email from a regular UKFT reader 'James' asking me to take a look at a few others he spotted and give my thoughts or reasons I didn't mention them, so here goes...

"- Napoli v Roma - snag here is that they are very close together in the table but everything else from what I can see looks good.
- Doncaster v Colchester
- Sturm Graz v Ried
- Basel v Luzern."

Napoli

This one I didn't look at, but I'm not sure why. It was probably just missed in my fast skim down the page during my stats analysis and shortlisting process, the odds are under 4 on the draw which can present a great trade but I do sometimes miss them as they are sometimes (more often than not) too close for trading the draw. However, looking at this one..

Yes the goal stats look good. I would say not quite good enough for a KO LTD, as the stats show Roma score early sometimes and Napoli rarely do, so may as well wait 20 minutes for a trade.

However, as you rightly say, they are right next to each other in the table. This doesn't always negate a trade, but it usually does, and I think it would for me here, certainly with a KO trade.

I would need to watch some of this game before committing any money to it. If it looks cagey as these games can often be, I may leave it alone, or take a late low liability bet (position) only. The home form of Napoli is certainly attractive, and they love to score goals, Roma do concede a goal or two as well, so I don't dislike this game, especially at that price of 3.9.

I am almost tempted,  but still would stick to my guns (rightly or wrongly) and plan to trade this 20 minutes in earliest, IF watching and it's an attacking game, and of course if it's still 0-0. This would technically be an in-play soccer trade but it's one of many variations on the method, as explained in my lay the draw book.

Doncaster

I did look at this one actually, I didn't mention it as I don't mention all the games I check on the coupon. In this case it didn't look too bad, but in the normal approach of finding reasons "not to trade" I found a couple of points which put me off enough to avoid it from KO anyway. Those points are:

1. Doncaster have conceded 2 goals in each of their last three games. Maybe that doesn't mean anything, but maybe it means they are having trouble defending at the moment, a small negative but one which can hurt a LTD quite badly.
2. Colchester only concede 1.17 goals per game away from home, which is less than they do at home (1.5). This can sometimes indicate a team which scores more goals at home, playing more openly, but playing more tightly when playing away. Of course this point contradicts point 1, they can't both be true, but it's another negative and when I spotted 1.17 on my skim through the stats, that was enough to close it out for me. But that doesn't mean I am right, and I can easily see a 3-0 home win here, I just don't think it's likely enough to risk a trade on it.

Sturm Graz

Totally agree, the stats are superb, and this looks a nailed on trade to me.

However, the reason I didn't mention it is because I didn't spot it as I would have rejected it at the coupon sift stage due to the low volume. Again, this doesn't mean it can't be traded, but in my hasty run down the list, I tend to reject games with less than 5k matched, especially on a Saturday when there are many more traders/punters around to bet on these events.

I would probably check this again around KO and if the volume comes up and looks tradeable, I would definitely be interested.

I just tend to write these off early as I have had a few annoying trades in the past where everything went great, but I couldn't exit and either took a red (even on a winning trade) or waited for my trade to get matched and missed my exit as a goal came in from the other team! It's a definite trade, just a possible volume issue here.

Basel

Again this was probably a traded volume issue as to why I didn't check it. But having a look now, it has nearly 5k matched, but thats still not confidence inspiring, although possibly tradeable.

My feeling is its wise to go half stakes on any low volume games where there are nerves about being able to exit. As for the stats here, I am not that keen.

It certainly looks likely that a home win is highly probable. But I really don't like Basel's last home game where they only managed to draw 1-1 with the bottom team of the league, that's a definite concern even against all the green results before that.

What might have changed? Maybe nothing, maybe something important. That's enough to reject for me, given the liquidity issues.

Looking at the scoring times, I might be interested in post 75 minute very low liability LTD or any other low lay, as trading out wouldn't be a problem them due to being so late and the whistle could save the trade even if the market can't let you out!

Finally, as a rule, I don't trade any league which has a team called "Young Boys" in it. Frankly they should be hiding that sort of thing in my view, I know we are all liberalised these days, but that's taking it a bit far for me. HAHAHA 😀