Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Punting on La Liga and Premier League.

Real Madrid won easily and the Manchester derby ended in a draw, so it's one more winning prediction and one full refund. I will take those kinds of winning nights anytime.

Since the beginning of this blog, you will realize that I've been recommending Madrid (win or draw-no-bet) quite regularly, and so far they've been great to follow because they are undefeated. Although they are not bound to remain that way, I really cannot see them lose many games this season. Last year, they total-ed record points and still lost the league to super Barcelona. In fact, they lost it because they were unable to beat Barcelona in the home and away games. Bar those games, they fared actually better than Barca. With Mourinho at the helm, they are a better team, and more importantly, it is very unlikely they will lose to Barcelona in both home and away games. So it is fair to say that if Barcelona keep dropping points as they've been doing, Madrid will have a serious go at them for the title. They are a hungrier team too because they have won nothing yet.

Contrary to La Liga, the Premier League currently seems to be far from being a 2-horse race since there are no clear dominant forces as before. Chelsea are an aging team; Man Utd are rebuilding; Arsenal are being their usual also-rans; Man City are as good as anyone on paper but they will only get better with time. A 4-point gap at the top at this stage does not mean anything. Add in other teams like Everton, Tottenham, Villa, Liverpool as spoilers to the mix, it is clear that all of the leading teams will drop many points as the season progresses. This league is clearly very competitive; although at the end, I still expect it to be between Chelsea and Man Utd.

So, for the punter, there are clearly less pitfalls when fancying the super powers of La Liga than those of the Premier League. The returns are certainly less, but the results are more predictable.

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