When the football blogging maestro that is Michael Cox of www.zonalmarking.net speaks, people listen.

So I think it is only appropriate that if he asks you a question, you should at least attempt to answer it.

At the weekend Michael took a ten second breather from analysing the tactical decisions of the European footballing elite and creating chalkboards to ask me:

“Would it not make sense to just back all of the top five sides to win the FA Cup at this stage, particularly given how elitist the trophy has become in recent years?”

Well, I have had a bit of a dig around and here is my $0.10 worth on the matter…

Recent developments

With Hereford United’s 1-0 win last night over Wycombe Wanderers, 36 of the 759 teams that qualified for this year’s FA Cup still remain in the competition.

This must have been a particularly sweet victory for the Bulls, who are currently looking firmly up at the rest from the dreaded 92^nd position at the very foot of the football league whilst the Chairboys are currently sitting pretty in 3^rd place in League Two.

Before we look at any of the historic statistics and begin to analyse the situation, I would like to consider one topical issue regarding the FA Cup.

Able… and willing

In addition to how many clubs are capable of winning the FA Cup, can we even be certain how many sides want to win the competition these days?

Although they all dream of lifting the trophy,  in recent history second tier winners have been few and far between – the last being Sir Trevor Brooking’s West Ham side 31 years ago.

That said, there have been three second tier teams make the final in the last 20 years, but irrespective of that it is my view that the probability of such teams winning the competition reduces each and every year as the sport continues to develop and the disparity between the top clubs and the rest of the league increases.

Even when you consider the 20 top flight teams, the pressure on the smaller clubs to retain their Premier League status in the modern era is huge.

You only have to look back to the weekend to see a much changed Blackpool side getting beaten by a talented but inexperienced League One Southampton side and Steve Bruce’s tactical gamble to rest a few weary legs after the busy festive period backfiring massively at home to the Saint’s divisional comrades, Notts County.

As they have already proven this campaign, both of these sides, are capable of beating absolutely anybody on their day and Sunderland in particular face no material risk of relegation, but yet neither felt it important to try to secure the only remaining piece of silverware available for their fans.

Two more sides who may potentially finish in the top 10 in the league, Newcastle United and Liverpool, also exited the competition at their first stag – to varying quality of opposition!

With a fixture list clogging replay now in the calendar, Mick McCarthy must now be wondering whether or not he should “have done a Holloway” and tanked their game against Doncaster on Saturday.

Maybe he was too scared he may get fined a month wages, struck off the LMA register or publicly flogged by the FA if he did so.

After all, only Sir Ian Holloway is allowed to look at the bigger picture and use the assets at his disposal as he sees fit for the greater good of his employer and shareholders.  For he is humorous and therefore it is allowed.

However, if you are a straight talking Yorkshireman who tells it like it is aren’t allowed to do such things.  They are required to always play their first XI – every minute, of every game, until their toes bleed!

If you don’t, hell hath no fury like a plonker from the FA scorned!

Anyway, I think I have made my point.  Back to the issue at hand.

Before we even look at any data, I would conclude that only 20 of the 759 teams that enter the competition stand a legitimate chance of winning – and around 7 or 8 of those will probably only make a token effort to try and actually do so.

Any with Liverpool and Newcastle already out of the competition, I would say we are down to only circa 10 teams with a “material” chance of boarding the open topped bus come May.

The historic data

Let’s have a look back at the recent FA Cup winners and losing finalists.  The table below shows us the last 21 finals going back to Lee Martin’s 179 minute winner for Man United against Crystal Palace in 1990.  [ED – Queue references to Mark Robins importance to SAF’s legacy blah blah blah…)

FA Cup finalists – 1990 to 2010

Season	Winner	Loser
1989–90	Manchester United	Crystal Palace
1990–91	Tottenham Hotspur	Nottingham Forest
1991–92	Liverpool	Sunderland
1992–93	Arsenal	Sheffield Wednesday
1993–94	Manchester United	Chelsea
1994–95	Everton	Manchester United
1995–96	Manchester United	Liverpool
1996–97	Chelsea	Middlesbrough
1997–98	Arsenal	Newcastle United
1998–99	Manchester United	Newcastle United
1999–20	Chelsea	Aston Villa
2000–01	Liverpool	Arsenal
2001–02	Arsenal	Chelsea
2002–03	Arsenal	Southampton
2003–04	Manchester United	Millwall
2004–05	Arsenal	Manchester United
2005–06	Liverpool	West Ham United
2006–07	Chelsea	Manchester United
2007–08	Portsmouth	Cardiff City
2008–09	Chelsea	Everton
2009–10	Chelsea	Portsmouth

I have to confess I hadn’t realised quite how “four sided” this was!

Since 1990, a staggering 18 of the 21 FA Cup’s have been won by Manchester United (5), Arsenal (5), Chelsea (5) or Liverpool (3).

In addition to those 18 winners, the collective formerly known as “Big 4” also absorbed seven of the 21 losing finalist places – good for over 60% of the final appearances.  Six of those losing finalist were in “Big 4” finals with only Everton managing to overcoming one of the powerhouses, when back in 1995 Paul Rideout’s rebound goal pinched the Toffees the trophy from Man United’s grasp.

The only other sides to have prospered over the period were the highly leveraged Portsmouth side on 2008 (that says something in itself) and the old school Tottenham side of led by Gary Mabbutt way back in 1991.

An indicator of wider problems

Another observation at this point if I may.

Such domination by the big clubs, although indicative of the additional emphasis still placed on the FA Cup in the UK, in comparison to the cup competitions across the other major European leagues, is not really a sign of a healthy and competitive league.

I think it is indicative of the state of the British game and the unprofessional manor in which football clubs up and down the country have been run in recent years that, of the 11 other top flight clubs to have made an FA Cup final in this time, four are currently in the Championship (Portsmouth, Notts Forest, Crystal Palace, Middlesbrough), two are languishing down in League One (Southampton and Sheffield Wednesday) and three others have been down and up again recently (West Ham, Sunderland and Newcastle).

The only clubs that have kept their noses clean on the list are Everton, Aston Villa and Tottenham.

I really must give special mentions at this point to the second tier sides Sunderland (1992), Millwall (2004) and Cardiff (2008) that made cracking runs to the final whilst second tier clubs during the period.

No doubt great memories for the fans of those clubs and such runs are always enjoyable for the neutral looking on.

The here and now

The balls are now out out of the velvet bag and the fourth round draw is pretty much set.  However, it has to be said it doesn’t make pretty reading for the big boys.

Before they can even look to the next round, Arsenal have to see off plucky Leeds United at Elland Road (which is no sure thing) and Manchester City must finish the job against Sven’s Leicester side at TCOMS.

Although they are safely through, both Chelsea (Everton) and Spurs (Fulham) face tough ties away to tricky Premier League opposition.

Rounding out the big guns, Manchester United face a tricky and highly intriguing trip to St Mary’s to take on a Southampton side that are really beginning to hit their stride.  It should make for an interesting game, but assuming SAF doesn’t spread himself to thinly it is still a game I expect United to win comfortably.

Although these fixtures do look pretty tough, I would note that although the old maxim “you have to beat everybody at some point” isn’t quite true, you do at least “have to be somebody” along the way!

And you wouldn’t expect to see all five of the big guns in the quarter finals anyway.

You only have to look back to last year for examples of early cup exits, when Jermaine Beckford outpaced Nemanja Vidic and slid the ball past the onrushing Tomasz Kuszczak to give League One Leeds their now infamous victory at Old Trafford.

And the season before, who can forget the Merseyside derby, settled at the death as Dan Gosling announced his arrival to the Goodison faithful whilst dumping out a (at the time) well fancied Liverpool side?!

Classic FA Cup action.  Or it would have been had it not been well and truly balls up by ITV.  Think about this clip next time you feel like slagging of Sky’s overage – even if they do make us endure Redknapp Junior on an almost daily basis.

Pricing a multi-selection position

OK, so we have pretty much established that the big guns have had the competition by the balls in recent years.  However, before we can even begin to determine whether something represents a good value bet we need to consider the prices.

Man United are currently the favourites and can be backed at around 5.2 on the exchanges.  Tottenham and be backed at 8’s, and all of the others are somewhere in between.

Check out the table below, which details the current prices and a 5pt split stake position across the newly established “Big 5”:

Current FA Cup winner odds as at 12 January 2011

	Odds	Stake	Profit	Net
Chelsea	7	1.05	6.30	2.35
Man United	5.2	1.45	6.09	2.54
Man City	7.2	0.90	5.58	1.48
Arsenal	8.2	0.90	6.48	2.38
Tottenham	9.2	0.70	5.74	1.44
Total		5.00		2.04

It is possible to generate a circa 2pt return from this split stakes wager, irrespective of the actually winner.  In the above example I have chosen to weight the profits slightly towards the original “Big 3” because, to be blunt, they are the better teams.

(New readers – if you are unfamiliar with the points system please read this Health & Safety post)

So now we know that you can generate a 40% return on your money if this bet is successful, should under what circumstances should we be getting stuck in?

Is this a +EV position?

A 40% average return from a split stakes position is equivalent to placing a single get at odds of 1.4.

Therefore to justify opening the position we need to be assured that it will come in more than 71% of the time (1/1.4).

As previously stated, over the last 21 years the elite clubs of the time have prospered 18 times – good for 85.7%.

Only 15 winners would have made the bet a breakeven position on these prices, and I am struggling to see where three other alternative winners would be coming from.

Like my piece on the Premier League top goalscorer market last month, this is a prime example of the bookies desire to shaft people by offering terrible odds on such a high number of runners coming back to bite them.

Conclusion

Now, as someone that works in the financial sector (and would also like to own a property), I am more than aware of the dangers of jumping in at the top of a market “that always goes up”.

That is a rapid way to ending up with a sore bum.

However, once you consider the growth in the elite group from four to five teams this season due to the emergence of Manchester City, the increasingly apparent trend that the smaller Premier League clubs are not going to focus on the competition and the increasing presence of the top teams in the latter stages of the competition I can only conclude that there is a significantly greater than 71% chance of one of the elite clubs taking home the trophy.

Even on one of the two occasions this bet has lost in the 19 years, Manchester United were the losing finalist and you would have been able to de-risk (or even totally hedge for a very small guaranteed return) your position at that stage if you so wished anyway.

I am going to work on the basis of there being a c.80% chance of one of the listed teams winning the trophy and on that basis there is plenty of fat in the position (12%) and it is one well worth taking.

So after a 2,000 word monologue I guess it would be rude of me to not put my money where my mouth is.  So I am going to do just that.

BOTW: 5pt split-stake position on one of the “Big 5” to win the FA Cup

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