Posts Tagged ratings

How pleasurable that we pretty much nailed the matches last night. 23 goals forecast and 23 scored. We also had the “right sort of slope” to the forecast with, generally, the higher scoring matches at the top of the curve and lower scoring ones to the right. It was a night set of results and some great matches last night.

This evening looks similar in terms of the goal tally and here are the rankings from most to least goals: -

BATE Borisov vs. Barcelona
Leverkusen vs. Genk
AC Milan vs. Plzen
Arsenal vs. Olympiakos
Shakhtar vs. APOEL
Valencia vs. Chelsea
Zenit St Petersburg vs. Porto
Marseille vs. Dortmund

A point of note on the matches tonight is that Leverkusen are in a better position to win at 1.34 than than AC Milan at 1.31. This appears to be the stand out anomaly in this evenings matches.

Nice result on the Barcelona match last night! Our top four goal ranks produced three over 2.5 goal matches and the bottom four three under 2.5 goal matches. I would have estimated four matches would be likely to reach >2.5 but there were only three. I would lean on the side of lots more goals than normal this evening and therefore overs are in-play and unders at risk this evening.

Because this evening’s matches should produce more goals I would raise my forecast to around 23/24. We were a bit light on goals last night.

I’d rank most to least goals as: -

Dinamo Zagreb vs. Real Madrid
Man City vs. Napoli
Inter vs. Trabzonspor
Villarreal vs. B Munich
Ajax vs. Lyon
Benfica vs. Man Utd
FC Basel vs. Otelul Galati
Lille vs. CSKA Moscow

Both Manchunian matches deserve a bit of attention this evening and if either team carry their form forward from the premier league then their opponents will be in trouble. I suspect Man Utd will just be looking at progression at this point and will be less likely to really go for it so early on in the group stages. With confidence flowing I think Man Utd are a good price at 1.93 this morning despite a likely cautious approach. The less competitive matches look much less interesting.

An excellent result from last night when we chose to oppose Chelsea to start and got the goal forecast spot on!

I would forecast 22/23 goals this evening. I am paying a lot of attention to the Tottenham match this evening. Spurs have a big incentive to win and market seems to be pricing that in. But my contrary side is nudging me towards Spurs making hard work of it, so I am going to try and find an opportunity in there somewhere. Rangers need a result against Man Utd but I think that may open the door for United.

Tonights ratings from most to least goals.

Tottenham vs W Bremen
Valencia vs Bursaspor
Panathinaikos vs Barcelona
Inter vs Twente
Hapoel Tel Aviv vs Benfica
Rangers vs Man Utd
Schalke vs Lyon
Rubin Kazan vs FC Copenhagen

From most to least goals: -

Chelsea vs.  Zilina
FC Basel vs.  CFR Cluj
Ajax vs.  Real Madrid
Roma vs.  B Munich
Braga vs.  Arsenal
Partizan Belgrade vs.  Shakhtar
Auxerre vs.  AC Milan

I will forecast around 20 goals this evening. Final matches in the group stages can be tricky as managers often send out weaker teams. Chelsea should beat Zilina but may be a little short at 1.17 to win, intially. It all depends what team they put out.

This evenings matches are much tighter and difficult to read. Shakhtar / Arsenal for example, if Arsenal were at home much easier. Most matches look pretty even to be honest, apart from the obvious win for Chelsea. For tonight I would forecast 21/22 goals in total.

If you look back through the blog at recent ratings, you will see we have been very close a lot of time and generally nail the lowest scoring match. The more matches there are on, the closer I will be as they even each other out. Over the course of a season I should be almost spot on, on average.

Ordered from most to least goals.

Chelsea v Spartak Moscow
FC Basel v Roma
AC Milan v Real Madrid
CFR Cluj v B Munich
Shakhtar v Arsenal
Auxerre v Ajax
Zilina v Marseille
Partizan Belgrade v Braga

Here is my assessment of this evenings matches. This evenings matches are not that inspiring to be honest, so I am looking for some clear cut positions on what will probably be a quiet night for me. You can see from the ratings that the Chelsea match clearly stands out from this evenings offerings.

Least goals to most: -

Spartak Moscow v  Chelsea

Braga v  Partizan Belgrade

Ajax v  Auxerre

Real Madrid v  AC Milan

Arsenal v  Shakhtar

Marseille v  Zilina

Roma v  FC Basel

B Munich v  CFR Cluj

Least to most competitive matches: -

B Munich v  CFR Cluj

Marseille v  Zilina

Real Madrid v  AC Milan

Roma v  FC Basel

Arsenal v  Shakhtar

Ajax v  Auxerre

Braga v  Partizan Belgrade

Spartak Moscow v  Chelsea

I’ve often posted up ratings so thought I would explain something about them. My ratings come for many years of research and are designed to shape the way I will participate in a match. People who have attended talks I have done about football, would probably get most value from them to be honest. Over time I’ve managed to get ratings accurate to a fraction of a percent over the course of a season. But it’s important to understand that, on a day to day basis, ratings can’t nail what happens in each individual match. But in aggregate and over all, they are effective tools.

Last night the ratings came up with the following average goals per match: -

Ajax – 2.72
Auxerre – 2.58
Braga – 2.38
Chelsea – 2.91
FC Basel – 2.85
Partizan Belgrade – 2.73
Roma – 2.88

If you add up all the ‘expected’ goals they come to 19, last night delivered 18 goals. Overall result was pretty close, but this isn’t typical as it tends to take time for the ratings to average out. Ratings can also provide a most likely, least likely scenario for several aspects of the match and this works well if you are taking a position on all matches. You win some, you lose some but overall you can end up on the deal.

I’ve posted tonight’s ratings on the forum.