Sportsbook operators and suppliers give iNTERGAMINGi an operational perspective from inside their Premier League trading hubs
Chelsea 4-3 Brighton – Sunday, August 30
Mārtiņš Korulis, sportsbook manager at Tonybet:
Pre-match, the market moved towards both Chelsea and goals. Chelsea shortened from around 5/6 to 8/11, while over 2.5 goals moved from approximately 5/8 to 1/2. So, the expectation was clearly for Chelsea to have the advantage and for the game to be high-scoring.
The starting XI had a few differences from expectations, most notably Emiliano Martínez starting in goal and Moisés Caicedo being on the bench. However, Chelsea’s main attacking players – Cole Palmer, João Pedro and Morgan Rogers – all started, so there was little reason to reduce their attacking expectations.
The market view proved correct. Chelsea won 4-3, and over 2.5 and BTTS both landed. From a trading perspective, this could have been a difficult result if liability was concentrated on popular combinations such as Chelsea + over 2.5, Chelsea + BTTS and Chelsea goalscorer markets.
Jeeve Jeyaratnam, chief betting officer at Abelson Sports: The pre-match team goal expectancies were approximately 1.86 for Chelsea and 1.23 for Brighton. Chelsea were priced at 1.83 in the 1X2 market, the draw was 3.80 and Brighton were 4.00. The market was expecting a higher-than-average goal total in this game and that is how it played out, though the seven goals were far in excess of what was expected – 3.09.
We had Chelsea in for 14.93 shots, with 5.34 expected on target. Brighton were in for 11.44 shots, with 4.00 expected on target. As you’d expect when a match features more than double the expected number of goals, there are likely to be more shots than expected, too. In this case, Chelsea had 17 shots (six on target), while Brighton took 15 shots (also six on target). The correlation here isn’t perhaps as high as we’d expect given seven goals, but nonetheless, when the expected totals are surpassed, the sportsbook is likely to witness a losing match.
A lot of that depends on who scored the goals and who took the shots. In this case, the first goalscorer, Romeo Lavia, would have been a fantastic result for operators; playing in defensive midfield, he was expected to score just 4.5 per cent of Chelsea’s 1.86 expected goals, meaning that he was 43.00 (21.00 with margin) to open the scoring and 8.32 (6.50 with margin) to score anytime.
Being an early-season match, it’s often hard to know exactly which lineup to predict, but we weren’t surprised by Chelsea’s XI. Chelsea’s successful pursuit of Morgan Rogers would see him paired with Cole Palmer behind João Pedro. These three would provide the biggest threat to operator margins, and with both Pedro and Palmer hitting the net, this was likely a losing match from a props point of view. Brighton were harder to predict, with so many new faces for the new season and the positioning of Malick Yalcouye, who played as an attacking midfielder – which was a slight surprise. We had him in for seven per cent of Brighton’s expected goals, but he’s now in for 11 per cent for future games, after review.
There was one slightly surprising positional placement in the lineup, with Pedro Neto playing at right-wing-back instead of Malo Gusto, who took up a more central position. This meant our pre-match pricing allocations were slightly over the expected 100 per cent of Chelsea goals target. The Brighton XI totalled just under 100 per cent, so any value would likely come from their side. The obvious one was Yalcouye, who was 5.93 (5.00 with margin) to score anytime. He should have been closer to 3.70 (3.25 with margin). He did, of course, score Brighton’s opening goal.
Ben Cullen, head of risk at Midnite: The money was firmly on odds-on favourite Chelsea, both in the run up to the game and throughout the match itself. Midnite punters heavily favoured Cole Palmer to score as his return to form continues, and they certainly fancied this game as being somewhat of a goalfest. When almost every backed outcome was realised, it resulted in a heavy defeat for UK bookmakers.
We saw that Emiliano Martínez started in goal for Chelsea, while Moisés Caicedo and Reece James were missing – something of a surprise given they’d featured in most expected lineups. However, given that Chelsea have such a large squad, these lineups can change much more than any other Premier League side, so it’s not overly surprising that changes like this happen. Luckily, we keep this in mind when looking at the price at kickoff.
Chelsea were backed in a couple of ticks between lineups and kickoff, but it wasn’t anything particularly significant that would have an overall impact on our pricing strategy. With Chelsea’s squad depth, they have multiple strong players in each position.
The game was, unfortunately, a heavy loss for us, with several of the well-backed outcomes coming to fruition. Overs, Chelsea winning, Palmer to score and BTTS were all popular bets throughout the game. Generally, when a favourite wins and there are three-plus goals, we’ll be on the wrong side of it.
Brentford 3-0 Chelsea – Friday, September 18
Jack Macey, football trader at Sky Bet:
Coming into the game, Chelsea had been the most interesting team to watch in the league, scoring 18 goals and conceding 12 across six games in all competitions. As a result, this game’s goal expectancy of 3.23 was the highest of gameweek five.
In the few days leading up to the game, our price on Chelsea was an average of about 5/4, going as low as 23/20. However, after news that in-form striker João Pedro was injured, our price drifted to 6/4 on the morning of the game, and after a surprising midfield two of Jordan Henderson and Valentín Barco were named to start for Chelsea, our price on them drifted out further to 13/8.
After Brentford proceeded to win 3-0, there were several notable moves in price in the two teams’ outright fortunes, with the market suggesting Brentford are now serious contenders to play Champions League football next season.
Brighton 3-0 Arsenal – Saturday, September 19
JM: Despite Brighton’s good start to the season, Arsenal looked nearly unbeatable coming into the game, so much so that we had them priced at 25/1 to go unbeaten in the league this season and 14/1 to break Chelsea’s record of conceding less than 15 goals in the league this season.
Very little of note occurred in terms of players being ruled out in the lead-up to this game. Arsenal’s starting XI was exactly what we anticipated, with Brighton only having one change to what we predicted. As such, there was very little fluctuation in the match odds market in the lead-up.
After the Premier League action so far this season, Brighton’s 3-0 win is likely the game that has changed the outright landscape the most of any game played this season.
Everton 2-2 Manchester United – Sunday, September 6
MK: The bigger pre-match move was in this game. Manchester United were strongly backed, shortening from around 11/10 to 8/11, while over 2.5 goals moved from approximately 13/20 to 1/2. Other closing markets had United nearer 9/10, but the overall direction was clearly towards United.
There were no major surprises in the starting XIs, so the move appeared to be driven mainly by market support rather than unexpected team news. This arguably created some value on Everton +0.5, especially once United became very short.
The match was 0-0 at half-time, but the second half completely changed the goals markets. United led twice, including 2-1 from the 88th minute, before Everton equalised in the 96th minute.
The final 2-2 result was likely positive for the book on the 1X2 market if there was heavy liability on United, as the strongly backed favourite failed to win. However, over 2.5 goals and BTTS both landed, so goals-related markets went with the pre-match market direction.
The strongest pre-match trend across this game and Chelsea’s win over Brighton was support for goals, and that proved correct; the games finished 4-3 and 2-2, respectively. Chelsea’s shortening was justified by the result, while Manchester United arguably became too short, making Everton on a positive handicap the more interesting value position.
BC: It was the Manchester side that were around 11/10 favourites for the win, with Everton being talked down a lot in the media for failing to replace their summer outgoings. In terms of goals, punters didn’t seem to show a particular preference for either overs or unders. Everton were likely perceived to have a lack of goals in the side, whereas United being unpredictable led punters to be undecided on this one.
The starting teams for both Everton and Manchester United were more in line with what we initially predicted for this match. Benjamin Šeško remained on the bench as he continued to build his fitness; the only real notable absentee for Everton was Christian Nørgaard.
The game ending in a 2-2 draw was always going to be an ideal outcome for bookmakers, and for us, it was a great result overall.
JJ: Manchester United were an away favourite for this clash. They were expected to score 1.81 goals versus Everton’s 1.28. So, similar to the Chelsea v Brighton game, we were expecting around 3.09 total goals. Everton were 3.64, the draw was 3.77 and Manchester United were 1.92. In terms of shots, we had Everton expected to hit 12.52 (4.62 on target) and Man Utd 14.75 (with 5.2 on target).
In reality, we saw four goals, with Everton beating their expected shots targets – 18 shots for Everton (six on target), while Manchester United made up at 14 (three on target), just under expected. Despite Manchester United not meeting shots expectations, Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin Šeško would have been popular selections. Bruno Fernandes assists are always of interest. We had him in for 30.5 per cent of Man Utd’s expected 1.27 assists. On average we expect 70 per cent of goals to be assisted in the Premier League.
The game saw six yellow cards, more than the expected total of 4.40. Luke Shaw was booked, and he was the Manchester United card favourite at 3.10 to see a card. The Manchester United lineup was exactly as expected, and our predicted pre-match XI totalled 100 per cent of United’s expected goals. Everton’s XI cumulated to 106 per cent, mainly due to Brennan Johnson’s (17.5 per cent) selection. We expected the lesser goal threat of Jack Grealish (12 per cent) to play from the start. Given Everton’s selection of Thierno Barry, Tyrique George, Johnson and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall in attacking roles, there wasn’t much value to be had in this game. One player of interest was Everton centre-back Jarrad Branthwaite, who registered two shots on target. He was expected to make up just 0.15 or 3.55 per cent of Everton’s total shots on target.
Johnson is always an interesting selection to follow in the card market. His exuberant tracking back can see him booked, particularly against teams that like to counter-attack. In this match, he was booked in the 34th minute for a lunging, mistimed tackle on Matheus Cunha. Upon review, Barry has had his percentage tweaked to allow for the likely continuation of Johnson on the wing, but there were few other tweaks across either side. After a weak end to their transfer window, Everton, currently, don’t pose too much difficulty in pricing due to the relatively small composition of their
first-team squad.
