Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew

The Road to Riches Weekend of 3rd-4th June

Posted on 2 Jun 2023 09:54 in Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew

Coming up this weekend

  • Horse Racing, On the flat at Doncaster, Epsom, Lingfield and Musselburgh and over the jumps at Hexham, Stratford and Worcester
  • Football, the FA Cup Final Manchester City v Manchester United
  • Formula One, the Spanish Grand Prix
  • Cricket, the England-Ireland Test continues at Lords and next week the World Test Championship final at the Oval, Australia v India
  • Tennis the French Open concludes
  • Golf the Canadian Open on the USPGA and the Scandinavian Mixed Open on the DP World Tour

Royal Ascot

Neil Channing’s package for Royal Ascot (20th-24th June) is now available for subscription here, cost is £199


Free Tip

The Derby by Neil Channing, Saturday at 1.30pm

 This year we have 14 runners in The Derby with the favourite at 7/2 which would make it a bit difficult for punters at the standard 1/5th 123. Pretty much all firms offer 1/5th 1234 though and that gives us a good chance. At 1/5th 12345 with a couple of firms it's really good for backers. Even though it's going to be a tough race to find the winner and we are largely guessing as to which of these young, unexposed colts is best, the 1/5th 1234 makes it well worth having a couple of each-way bets.
 
 Regular readers of the Betting Emporium big horse race write-ups will know that when placing an each-way bet that I consider the worst crime you can commit is to lose both bets for the same, highly corelated, reason. The main one to worry about here is stamina and I think it's a big mistake to back a really doubtful stayer each-way and that makes me rule out both Dubai Mile and Passenger, the latter being a horse who must be too short as he was so noted as unlucky last time. Obviously lots of horses in the race are trying the trip for the first time and could fail due to lack of stamina but it's the shorter priced ones where I really can't take a chance and although Auguste Rodin looks very likely to stay I'd have to cross him off when you add in his poor run in the Guineas. I'm also going to cross out White Birch, who has stayed on well over ten furlongs, but who tries this trip for the first time, as he is drawn in the dreaded stall two and he was beaten fair and square by The Foxes last time and may have been beaten by Passenger, if the latter had a bit of luck.
 
 Lots of people these days like to say that the going is not as big a factor as people think when deciding who wins a race but I'm pretty old school and I reckon the ground will be quite fast tomorrow and that could be bad for both Arrest and Sprewell so I'll eliminate them. I'm also scratching those horses over 20/1 as when we are playing for the place value we have to be careful that we don't lose too much on the win price and sometimes on these 33/1 shots the true price to win is nearer to 66/1 and they can drift alarmingly. The shorter prices are just way more likely than the longer ones to be close to their true chance.
 
 I've left myself with just two colts and I'm backing them both.
 
 The Dante is traditionally the strongest trial and although it's over 1m2f and we haven't seen The Foxes try today's trip I think he is bred to stay, looks like he'll stay and at a slightly bigger price we can take that chance. I guess the worry with him is that he has a tendency to hang and it might make you question his ability to go on the track but he was able to win at Goodwood and he likes fast ground. I felt like his price was a fair bit over what I'd have made him.
 
 Military Order is a certain stayer as he won the Lingfield Derby trial which is run over this trip. That race was run on the all-weather due to all the rain, but he has won on turf twice and I just think he looks extremely solid and likely to place although I could easily see one improving past him. I can't see him being a superstar winner and maybe one will emerge and beat him, but I do reckon he'll run a solid race.
 
 I'm having 10 Points each-way The Foxes at 14/1 1/5th 1234 easily available (take the 5 places with Sky Bet if you can).
 
 I'm having 14 Points each-way Military Order at 9/2 1/5th 1234 easily available.

Sleepwalking

It all started with the King Power Helicopter crash in 2018, with Leicester City robbed of a ruthless and decisive chairman (for example prepared to sack Ranieri the season after winning the title) replaced by his son, less effective, less dynamic and less involved than his father. That the crash was followed by the COVID pandemic that so affected the finances of the parent company duty free business and left the new young Chairman observing events remotely for a year was unfortunate, but the tale of Leicester City’s relegation is one of complacency, mismanagement and failing to spot the signs of impending trouble.

In the 9 years the club was in the Premier League it, famously, won the League, finished 5th twice subsequently, the FA Cup, the Community Shield and reached the Champions League Quarter Finals.

Problems began in the Summer of 2021 when, in the wake of a £60m summer spend the club began hitting FFP ceilings. That £60m was by and large spent poorly, in a couple of cases on panicky defensive buys such as Vestergaard and Bertrand in the midst of an injury crisis. Signing ageing players on expensive contracts, plus others like Soumare and Daka who failed to settle, reduced the flexibility to keep building the squad as other teams around them strengthened.  The result was the transfer window of last summer which saw no incoming players and the important loss of Schmeichel, still in contract, who was never replaced. No Schmeichel and the loss of Jonny Evans for virtually the whole season since October, had a huge effect on a defence that was young, unsettled and no longer well protected, as the form of defensive midfielder Wilfred Ndidi was a shadow of that of two years previously.

Fofana was sold for a price it was impossible to turn down, and ultimately some of those proceeds were invested in three defenders in the January transfer window, Faes, Souttar and Kristensen. Two of these players were out of the side once Dean Smith arrived and Faes was partnered with a revolving door of other centre backs in the last third of the season.

Poor recruitment led to a subsequent tightening of the purse strings and this had been on the cards since the 2020-21 accounts where the wage to turnover burden was 85% when UEFA’s cost control regulations were being set at 80% and then 70% going forward.

Aware of all this the ambitious Brendan Rodgers visibly became half-hearted, publically criticising players at times, pointing to an unbalanced squad at others and telling press conferences that the club had reached its ceiling. Fans agitated for his removal, but the club was drifting off-the-field with no sign of the decisiveness required to make such a decision and such was the size of potential pay-off that it was difficult to afford this under FFP anyway.

The board meanwhile was dropping the ball on expiring contracts, notably Youri Tielemans who was much in demand 18 months ago, wanted to leave but wasn’t sold and now leaves this summer out of contract after a series of half-hearted performances during the relegation fight.

Eventually a change of manager came when there was really no other option, but with only 9 games to go. Turned down by Benitez and, in a sign of how far things had fallen, Jesse Marsch, in came Dean Smith suggesting that 11 points were needed. He was right, but the side only achieved nine points under him.

Through the season the side only won 11 points from matches against sides that also finished in the bottom six, the worst of any of those teams. No points were won over the season against Bournemouth and Southampton. The defensive stats were horrific. The club broke the record for the most goals conceded from the first seven games of a Premier League season and had four separate four game losing streaks. Nine home games were lost and there was one clean sheet in the last 22 league games, and that one was when it was too late, at Newcastle in the penultimate game of the season.

Putting the ball in the back of the net has not been such a problem, with 51 goals scored a total bettered by only 8 other teams this season. Only two other clubs have been relegated from the Premier League having scored 50+ goals. The fact that they have a decent attacking record yet were relegated emphasises just how defensively inept Leicester have been.

Ultimately Leicester became the first team in the Premier League era to be relegated after five straight top half finishes, and a cautionary tale of the risks of standing still and/or poor recruitment such is the inequity of the FFP system for smaller clubs.

The club enters the Championship with a huge rebuilding job on its hands. The Wage bill, bloated by nine years in the top league and trying to compete in the top half, is £182m the highest of any club relegated to the Championship. Parachute payments of £40m aren’t going to touch the sides of that. The club has taken out loans secured against Premier League TV revenue through to 2026. Sales of top players are inevitable, as are significant cutbacks off-the-field and a delayed stadium expansion and only some player contracts contain relegation clauses. Jamie Vardy owes the club nothing, but the sight of him charging around Home Park, Plymouth and the New York Stadium, Rotherham next season at 36 years old on £140,000 a week with his contract not expiring for another year will be an indication of the difficulties at hand beyond the obvious sales of Maddison and Barnes and the free transfers of Tielemans and the 9 other out of contract players.

Clarity of though, a plan and a direction with the right people to implement it, both in terms of football management and cutting the cloth of the business to new circumstances, is urgently needed but such is the scale of the shock of this relegation (not necessarily to the fans, but apparently to the board who have sleep-walked into it, happy to show pre-match montages of former glories on video screens before games but at no point make many sensible decisions in the last two years) that that might be overly optimistic.

I’d consider “doing a Burnley” and bouncing straight back unlikely such is the scale of cutbacks that need to take place not even considering whispers that the Thai Chairman would sell if an opportunity presented itself.

 


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The Road to Riches Weekend of 27th-28th May

Posted on 25 May 2023 10:08 in Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew

Coming up this weekend

  • Horse Racing, On the flat at Chester, Goodwood, Haydock, Salisbury and York and over the jumps at Cartmel and Ffos Las
  • Football, the final weekend of the Premier League, fixtures include Brentford v Manchester City and the play off Finals
  • Rugby Union, the Gallagher Premiership play off final, Saracens v Sale
  • Formula One, the Monaco Grand Prix
  • Cricket, the IPL final in Ahmedabad
  • Tennis the French Open
  • Golf the Memorial Tournament on the USPGA and the European Open on the DP World Tour

Royal Ascot

Neil Channing’s package for Royal Ascot (20th-24th June) is now available for subscription here, cost is £199


Free Tip

Gallagher Premiership Final Saracens v Sale, Saturday 3pm at Twickenham

The top two sides in the Gallagher Premiership league table this season meet in the Play-Off final this weekend. Saracens beat Northampton 38-15 in the first semi-final and Sale beat Leicester 21-13 in the more attritional second semi-final where defences were to the fore.

This has been Sale’s best season for 15 years built on a crop of good young players and specifically the league’s best defence and the game management skills of George Ford at fly half once he returned from his injury. Over the regular season Sale conceded 50 points less than any other team in the league and 85 points fewer than Saracens.

Sale have four players in the Premiership's top 10 for turnovers won per 80 minutes this season: both Curry twins, Bevan Rodd and Sam Dugdale, though Ben Curry is out injured for this game. However, such aggression has come at a price for Sale. They have conceded an average of 11.1 penalties per match, the highest total in the league.

Traditionally Saracens titles have been built on forward strength and Owen Farrell’s kicking. Indeed both teams essentially play a structured game. However this season Saracens have developed a slightly more expansive playing style with attacking intent.

Saracens' average carrying return per match has increased from 676 metres in 2021-22 to 778 this season, while their tally of kicking metres has dropped from 877 to 826. They were the top point scorers in the regular season and scored the second most tries. If the game gets unstructured on Saturday then Saracens are likely to have the edge.

Saracens have only lost two matches that Owen Farrell has started this season, against London Irish and at La Rochelle in the European Champions Cup. A more experienced side now with a couple of strings to their bow I like them to win the match by a score or two, in the region of 6-15 points

8 points Saracens to win by 6-10 points at 5/1 with William Hill, 9/2 generally

8 points Saracens to win by 11-15 points at 15/2 with William Hill, 7/1 Betfred

 


Ashes to Ashes

A feature of recent series is that Australia have scored runs in plentiful quantities led by the brilliant Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne and also because England have been nowhere near as capable as their counterparts at the task of keeping their best bowlers on the field.

With a few weeks left to go until this summer’s series Jofra Archer has already been ruled out, James Anderson has a groin injury, Mark Wood has left the IPL early and now Ollie Robinson has an ankle injury. Robinson, if fit, looms as a significant threat to Australia on English surfaces, nibbling the ball around at good enough pace but this season has also needed a cortisone injection in his back to be able to bowl. Aside from these players two other England quicks Olly Stone and Jamie Overton, are also on the injured list. Captain Ben Stokes has missed most of the IPL too and has carried knee trouble for a couple of years.

Australia meanwhile have strength in depth behind the settled starting line up of Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood and Lyon. Michael Neser has been brilliant for Glamorgan and looks ideally suited to English conditions, a Terry Alderman-like operator and Sean Abbott has been in good form for table topping Surrey and there is Scott Boland too who declined IPL and county stints to be ready for the Ashes.

Since 2017, England have had to play at times without Anderson, Stuart Broad, Archer and Wood at key times at home and away. Stokes had called for a group of up to 8 fast bowlers for the upcoming five tests that take place over a six week period. That now looks highly optimistic. It’s likely that Anderson and Robinson won’t be asked to play in the one-off Test against Ireland that begins the Test summer, saving them for the first Ashes Test but also pretty unlikely that Anderson at 40 will play five Ashes Tests in quick succession, with the schedule truncated ahead of the Hundred beginning at the start of August.


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A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £61,936 a 1448% increase 

 

 

 

The Road to Riches Weekend of 20th-21st May

Posted on 17 May 2023 10:33 in Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew

Coming up this weekend

  • Horse Racing, On the flat at Doncaster, Newbury, Newmarket and Thirsk and over the jumps at Bangor and Uttoxeter
  • Football, Premier League fixtures include Manchester City v Chelsea
  • Rugby Union, the European Champions Cup Final between Leinster and La Rochelle
  • Formula One, the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola
  • Cricket, the IPL continues and the start of the T20 Blast
  • Tennis the ATP Geneva and Lyon Opens and French Open Qualifying
  • Golf following the USPGA next week sees the Charles Schwab Challenge on the USPGA and the Dutch Championship on the DP World Tour

Free Tip

IPL KKR v Lucknow Super Giants Saturday 3pm

The last weekend of the Group Stages before the Knockouts next week. The Gujurat Titans have already Qualified for the “Qualifier 1” game in Chennai in which the top two in the group table meet with the winners going straight to the final in Ahmedabad. These two teams are battling for a place in the Eliminator game between the 3rd and 4th place finishers, where the winner advances to play the loser from Qualifier 1 and the loser is out.

Lucknow beat Mumbai on Tuesday to go to 15 points with this last game left. Despite the injury to Rahul combinations of Mayers, Pooran, Stoinis and De Kock have led LSG to many successes and batting is their strong area.

In their 13 games KKR have only won 6 but beat Chennai away last weekend to remain in the hunt for the knockout stages. In their batting line up both Singh and Rana have over 400 runs each and in the bowling ranks they’ve had to overcome a comparatively lean season for Sunil Narine with only 9 wickets in 13 appearances. They’ve done so through the performances of two other leg spinners. Suyash Sharma with 10 wickets and notably Varun Chakravathy with 19 at 8 runs per over. A former CSK net bowler, he out-bowled CSK’s spinners to win the match last weekend and will have more opportunities this against Lucknow’s big hitting line up.

Chakravathy has many more variations than when he was a younger player. Of his 19 wickets so far in this IPL the leg break has only accounted for 9 of the wickets and he bowls the tough overs too, 5 of his wickets have been taken from overs 16-20. Bowling when the opposition is taking risks, and with the extra variations has allowed him to keep taking wickets even on home pitches, not always the most conducive to slow bowlers.

10 points Varun Chakravathy Most KKR wickets at 11/4 wth Betfred, 5/2 with Betfair Sportsbook and Paddy Power.


Hundreds and Thousands

Just after the launch event for this season’s Hundred competition the ECB were briefing to journalists that the tournament might be heading for significant change already, having only run for two seasons, and possibly being scrapped completely.

Over and above the criticisms of the Hundred the essential problem that English cricket faces is unchanged. Between the feasible playing months of April and September running four full scale competitions across the various formats is not conducive to a sensible calendar. None of the County Championship, feeding into a Test Team, the Royal London, feeding into a national 50 over side and particularly the World Cup and a T20 tournament feeding into that World Cup can be scrapped yet all of August is currently given to the Hundred, a format no other country plays.

Though a mid-season World Cup has made this year an anomaly, the key elements of the English football calendar, a league split into four national divisions that start in August and end in May, an FA Cup that leading teams enter in January at the third-round stage and a League Cup have been unchanged since 1960-61. Cricket’s administrators though never seem sure what should be played and when. They face the challenge of a ever increasing numbers of overseas franchise competitions, the latest of which in the US is set to run in our summer months and provide more competition for talent.

The latest mooted changes to the Hundred follow the appointments last year of Richard Thompson and Richard Gould, noted Hundred sceptics when they worked together at Surrey, as the ECB’s chair and chief executive. Earlier this month the publication a report by Fanos Hira, chairman of Worcestershire found that projections made by Deloitte when they assessed the Hundred’s viability in 2016 have proven extremely optimistic. In the first year the competition generated only 41% of the income predicted with losses of £9m. The report says that fir the Hundred “organic growth options appear limited”, and external investment is needed if the competition is to boost salaries capped at £125,000 for men and £31,250 for women to a level capable of attracting the world’s best players. This year’s first edition of South Africa’s SA20, which like the Hundred is played over almost exactly a month but opened itself up to IPL franchise owners, paid its stars as much as £400,000.

Early discussions have concerned potentially rebranding the Hundred competition as an English Premier League and expanding to 18 teams, with a new promotion and relegation system introduced, possibly changing to a T20 format and removing the Blast and with it the pressure on the current calendar.

The Hundred has had some notable successes. With the help of heavily subsidised tickets and its place in the peak of summer it has attracted large numbers of people who had not previously attended live cricket. It has also brought live cricket back to the BBC. Last year, live coverage was watched by 14.1m viewers, of which 31% were women and 42% watched no other cricket in 2022.

The introduction of the Hundred was controversial and unpopular, and many county members preferred to attend the Royal London running concurrently, in some cases played by second XI’s with the the star players away at the Hundred.

 


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Betting Emporium results

The detailed results page has been updated on 1st January 2023. They can be found by clicking RESULTS

If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £61,936 All bets have an ROI +2.91%

A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £61,936 a 1448% increase 

 

 

 

The Road to Riches Weekend of 13th-14th May

Posted on 10 May 2023 09:18 in Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew

Coming up this weekend

  • Horse Racing, On the flat at Ascot, Haydock, Leicester, Lingfield, Nottingham and over the jumps at Hexham and Warwick
  • Football, Premier League fixtures include Everton v Manchester City
  • Rugby Union, the Premiership semi-finals
  • Cricket, the IPL continues
  • Tennis the ATP Geneva and Lyon Opens
  • Golf the USPGA Championship at Oak Hill

Free Tip

Gallagher Premiership Semi Final Sale Sharks v Leicester Tigers Sunday 3pm

The league part of the 2022/23 Premiership is complete and we’re into the play-offs where Saracens host Northampton Saints and Leicester Tigers visit Sale this weekend.

In a season that will be remembered for the wrong reasons – the demise of Wasps and Worcester Warriors, followed more recently by financial issues at Newcastle Falcons and London Irish, which has underlined just how precarious the Premiership and professional rugby itself really are - on the flip side, the game has thrived on the pitch with a  huge 771 tries scored in 220 matches, with as many as 32 fixtures separated by only one score in the final result.

Sale warmed up for Leicester’s visit by thumping the bottom placed Falcons 54-12 and have home advantage here by virtue of finishing second in the league table with the Tigers, last year’s play-off winners, third.

Leicester have lost 8 league games this season and dealt with the loss of their coaching staff to England mid-season. Their strengths are in the pack and at half back where South African marquee player Handre Pollard pulls the strings. Sale match up with those strengths well with a big physical pack and George Ford, who joined Sales from Leicester this season, at 10. They come into the game on the back of their most successful season in 15 years.

Outright prices for the game are Sale 8/13 and -3 on the handicap, Leicester 11/8 and it should be close with Sale rightly favourites at home. It could be as tight as one score, and unlikely to be more than two given how closely the sides match up.

The key differentiator could be defence. In the league this season Sale conceded 435 points to Leicester’s  490. In their last five visits to Sale Leicester have scored 5,3,10,26 and 5 points and in the two games between the two this season Leicester scored less than 2 points per visit to the 22, season lows

16 points Sale to win -3 Handicap at 10/11 generally


Draft Day

There is much NFL excitement over the draft and it is great business for the NFL. This year the draft recorded an audience of over 54m viewers over the three days and 312,000 fans attended in person at Kansas City

Even better business for the NFL is how rookie contracts work since the past two collective bargaining agreements. The rookie wage scale now operates to (1) mandate all drafted players sign four-year contracts; (2) prohibit renegotiations of these contracts for at least three seasons; and (3) pre-determine the financial compensation of every drafted rookie.

As to that predetermined compensation, the 2023 class is going to make virtually the same as the 2022 class, which made virtually the same as the 2021 class. For example, this year’s top pick, quarterback Bryce Young, will have a signing bonus of $24.6m, only 1% more than the $24.3m received by last year’s top pick, defensive tackle Travon Walker.

Why so nominal an increase? This is continuing fallout from the 2021 COVID-19-related cap decline of 8%, when the NFL and the NFLPA made the decision not to change the rookie salary formula for that season. Rather, they decided to claw back increases for future draft classes, keeping the rookie bonus increases at only 1% while the overall cap increases were 14% in 2022 and 8% in 2023.

Speaking of team advantages on rookie pay and rookie contracts, last week was the deadline for NFL teams to exercise fifth-year options on first-round picks from the 2020 draft. And the results are stark: Just 12 of the 32 players picked in that class were optioned. Only 14 were non-optioned on deadline day; five are no longer on the team that drafted them, and one signed a new contract to bridge the option.

In the recent CBA, the NFLPA made some gains by requiring the option year to be fully guaranteed. In the past, it was only guaranteed for injury; teams had low risk in exercising the option. Now they have to think hard about putting a big number on the player a year out, even if it could come back to haunt them, as it did with the Giants and Daniel Jones (the non-exercise of a $20m option cost the team $82m over the next two years).

If you had asked any of these non-exercising teams after the 2020 first round whether they felt confident that they would exercise the option on that player in May 2023, they would have all said “Of course!” In practice, it was a disappointing draft class.


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Betting Emporium results

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If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £61,936 All bets have an ROI +2.91%

A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £61,936 a 1448% increase 

 

 

 

The Road to Riches Weekend of 6th-7th May

Posted on 4 May 2023 09:02 in Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew

Coming up this weekend

  • Horse Racing, On the flat at Doncaster, Goodwood, Newmarket and Thirsk and over the jumps at Uttoxeter and Hexham.
  • Football, Premier League fixtures include Newcastle v Arsenal
  • Formula One, the Miami Grand Prix
  • Cricket, the IPL continues
  • Tennis the ATP Italian Open
  • Golf the TPC Byron Nelson on the USPGA and on the DP World Tour the Soudal Open

Free Tip

IPL Chennai Super Kings v Mumbai Indians 11am Saturday

Now in the second half of the Group stages both these teams are in contention for the knockout stage of the IPL. Chennai have fallen to third with 5 wins and a no-result this midweek due to rain in their 10 matches. Mumbai are a point behind them in fifth with 5 wins from 9 matches and moving into play-off contention following their chasing down of 215 to beat the Punjab Kings in Midweek.

Chennai’s great strength so far this competition has been their Powerplay batting. Their Powerplay run rate at over 10 runs per over is the best in the competition. They’ve only lost 6 wickets in the powerplay in 9 innings. Their weakness is seam and death bowling. Whilst front-line spinners Jadeja and Ali have combined for 23 wickets only Deshpande of the seamers has taken wickets, 17 of them, but he has gone at nearly 11 runs per over.

Unsurprisingly given the powerplay performances Chennai batting statistics are dominated by the top three in the order. New Zealander Devon Conway has 414 runs at 59 with five 50s. Last year’s top IPL run-scorer Ruturaj Gaikwad has 354 runs at 54 with two 50s and the revitalised Ajinkya Rahane batting at number three has 229 runs at 44 with two 50s.

Beyond the powerplay Devon Conway is also an exceptional player against spin, averaging 60, the best of all players in T20 history with 1000+ runs against the slower bowlers.

The most reliable option throughout this competition to date has been Conway, last week’s winner for this column, who is still not a clear favourite in the market, Gaikwad is, and Conway and should be.

10 points Devon Conway Top Chennai run scorer v Mumbai at 11/4 Betfair Sportsbook/Paddy Power, 23/10 Betfred 9/4 Coral


Buck Rodgers

Just before the NFL draft last weekend the long awaited trade of Aaron Rodgers from the Packers to the Jets took place. The Packers received:

- A first-round pick swap in 2023

- A high second-round pick in 2023

- A likely first-round pick in 2024 (at worst a second round pick) A conditional 2024 second-round pick becomes a first-round selection if Rodgers plays 65% of the plays in the upcoming season.

- A $60m financial obligation taken off their hands the Packers don't have to pick up the tab on his contract option, a relief for their salary cap. 

All this for a player that was never going to play for them again.

For the Jets this was a necessary but costly move. They started 7–4 last season before losing six consecutive games to close the season out, largely because its quarterbacks were Mike White, Zach Wilson and Joe Flacco. Ignoring the pick swap, the Jets essentially gave up a 2023 2nd and a 2024 1st but a 2nd and 1st is worth it to get a winning Quarterback at last.

A Jets Quarterback has not thrown 10+ touchdown passes in a season since 2019 and the last Jets Quarterback to throw 20+ Touchdown passes in a season was Ryan Fitzpatrick in 2015. Aaron Rodgers meanwhile has 8 career seasons with 30+ Touchdown passed. The Jets have one such season in their franchise history.

Rodgers is nearly 40 years old and clearly represents a gamble as the Jets are taking a player who might not play more than one season. Additionally, Rodgers is coming off a down year in which he failed to throw for 300 yards in any game. He also tossed 12 interceptions, the most since his first year as a starter in Green Bay in 2008.

 Still, the Jets roster is stocked with young talent such as Garrett Wilson and Sauce Gardner, and the Jets have no chance in the ultracompetitive AFC without a top-tier quarterback. Now, New York can realistically compete in 2023. Expectations are already sky-high though. One twitter poll with thousands of votes asked what outcome would make it a successful trade for Rodgers: 70% replied reaching the Superbowl or AFC Championship.

For Green Bay, it’s all about resetting with Jordan Love as Quarterback. After having 31 seasons of Brett Favre and Rodgers, Green Bay now have to evaluate Love before deciding whether to look for another option or commit to the former 2020 first-round pick. This deal begins the rebuild with a young roster but without Rodgers’ financial obligations. For now Green Bay have extended Love’s deal by a year with a contract worth over $22m, offering more for Love than picking up the fifth year extension but providing cap relief compared to both the tag ($38m) or Rodgers ($40m) and flexibility beyond this year if required to move in another direction.


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Betting Emporium results

The detailed results page has been updated on 1st January 2023. They can be found by clicking RESULTS

If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £61,936 All bets have an ROI +2.91%

A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £61,936 a 1448% increase 

 

 

 

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