Sweating
ByHow we all doing folks?!
It has been a mighty quiet around here the last week or so in my absence. Anyone found anything they like the “luck” of?
I still don’t plan on putting anything big on this weekend. It is still a little early for me. That said, I may go through the coupon tomorrow and have a little tinkle.
Before then we have the small matter of England v Bulgaria to enjoy/dure.
As I alluded to a few weeks ago, I have had a bit of trouble getting my picks on “special” markets up on here before the market/price disappears.
One of my largest wagers of the year will mature tomorrow when Don Fabio names his starting XI for the first Euro 2012 qualifier against Bulgaria.
Back at the end of June, Stan James and his boys jumped straight on the “England are doomed” bandwagon after that miserable afternoon in Bloemfontein, opening up a rash of markets.
One of such markets , was a special over/under market based on the starting XI from the Germany game.
They had determined the “breaking point” for this market to be that either 7 or 8 of the players from that day would retain their starting place. As a result, they offered a generous 10/11 on both “under 7.5″ and “over 7.5″.
After pondering this for a few hours (actually, it was so obvious this was about 5 minutes!) and consulting a few well respected friends, I placed a hefty 10% of my personal betting bank on “under 7.5″.
Let’s have a quick look at the team from that day:
1. James
2. Johnson
3. Terry
4. Upson
5. Cole
6. Milner
7. Barry
8. Gerrard
9. Lampard
10. Rooney
11. Defoe
Here is the thought process I went through:
- You didn’t need to be a football revolutionary to recognize that David James was unlikely to be the starting goalkeeper for the new campaign. I chalked him up as a goner.
- I determined that Matt Upson was unlikely to start the game, given both the teams and his individual performance in the summer, even before considering the possibility of Rio Ferdinand being fit to play football (which I quickly dismissed as irrelevant!)
- I figured that the days of trotting out a midfield four containing the trio of Gerrard, Barry and Lampard were also over. So there is 3 “likely” changes.
- I also felt that the striking combination of Jermaine Defoe / Wayne Rooney was never Capello’s first choice, and a shift to a 4-3-3 formation was likely, demoting Defoe back to the bench at best. That’s 4 changes, which would result in 7 players being retained.
- Given the inevitable media hysteria and the talk of an FA enforced “revolution”, I also placed weight on possible international retirements (Frank Lampard) and the possible ousting of a somewhat “talkative” centre half.
- At the time, I also felt that all further injury risk was in our favour i.e. there was a material chance one of Johnson, Cole, Rooney, Gerrard could miss the game due to an unfortunate injury… or simply being told they are “injured” by a rather domineering club manager! If you know what I mean, nudge nudge, wink wink.
As a result, I decided to plow in with a maximum stake 10% wager on the “under 7.5″ market.
A key factor in this staking decision was that all the injury risk and intangibles were in my favour.
However, after the retirements of Carragher and Brown, the ongoing issues of Captain Rio, the Deadly Ledley experiment running its course, the withdrawal of the Iron Man himself and an 11th hour injury for Phil Jagielka, it appears Capello has been left with a choice of using an untested Gary Cahill, Citeh’s reserve left back Joleon Lescott and, yes you guessed it, Matthew Upson at centre half.
Bloody hell. That is a spanner amongst my pigeons.
And in another crazy twist, injuries to both man-of-the-moment Bobby Zamora and Peter Crouch and the retirement of Big Emile have left JD and his mysteriously self regenerating groin in with a chance of starting up front again.
So from absolutely nowhere, I now have a nervous few hours ahead.
From what I thought might be my best bet of the year.
It’s a funny old game, sports betting!
Hate to say it but it isn’t looking good mate..Times, Telegraph and Guardian, are all going with Upson and Defoe in their starting line ups..
I can’t for the life of me understand this..Sending out a weakened version of the side that go dicked by the Germans..I like David James will be tuning into Come Dine With Me (or something similar)!!
In fact I might start tracing my family tree to see if there’s any other nation that I can legitimately support!
I find this baffling.
It is easy to say we need to play Upson (who in the past I may add I have been a supporter of) to provide “experience”, but if last week a player wasn’t even good enough to be in the squad, he then shouldn’t be starting in my eyes due to one injury.
I’m not even sure he is good enough, but if Gary Cahill is in the squad then he needs to play at some point. We cannot give him experience in friendlies and I can’t believe he is overly developing in training.
And if Lescott is in to cover full back not centre back we have a squad with one right back and three left backs.
I was a huge supporter of Capello and blamed the players for 90% of the debacle in the summer.
But this has me really wonderign if he has a clue or he is just here for the paycheck.
Adam Johnson is our future and should be playing. And if players aren’t worthy of a place in the 23 then they shouldn’t be good enough to start qualifiers a week later in my eyes.
I will have lost all faith in Don Fabio if this bet loses (not for the bet losing of course, but the statement it makes if the team has only changed by three players – two of them from injuries).
When people were calling for his head after the debacle in the summer he had meetings with the powers that be and came out saying that he knew what he needed to do. When he made those statements I wasn’t expecting a goal keeping change to be what he had in mind!!!
I’m all for having players in the squad that are for impact off the bench and not direct replacement for your starting man, but that goes for strikers and midfielders only, it certainly does not stand for center backs. If he plays Matty Upson it is a disgrace and sends out completely the wrong message to the other centre backs in the squad.
I thought when he came out saying things needed to change (and after his squad for the friendly) he was going to put his faith in the youngsters and look to the future. Upson is definitely not the future
Not only that, but I thought he meant he’d rethink the formation, which in turn would mean Defoe would be no where near the starting XI.
Blez, I have to say I’m worried because I don’t trust Capello, but your bet should win for the good of the future of English football.
Fingers crossed he doesn’t pick the side they all think he’ll pick…
Looking at all the reports its almost certain there will only be the two changes. Walcott will start in place of Lampard and Upson instead of Terry.
I know Capello is a fan of Upson but surely Dawson must step in shortly.
Unlucky with this one Blez.
Oh and one more thing slightly off the point. Ive been laying Walcott to score all afternoon on Betfair getting matched at around the 3.65 mark on average. In my opinion he will probably play about an hour or so. And out of his 10 starts with england in last three years has only scored in one of those games and we can all remember that. I think theres been a bit on an over reaction to his current form where he scored a hat trick against a poor ten man Blackpool team in which he played in a much more central role as to what he will be playing tonight. Certainly 3.6 is way too short these Bulgarians will keep it tight and dont expect a great amount of goals.
Ben,
I know which of us is more likely to be turning a profit tonight!
But when Capello sends out a four pronged Brazilian style attack of Johnson – Gerrard – Walcott – Rooney….
*huge sigh*
nice 1 Blez.
Cheers Ben…
Never in doubt, as they say!
