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In sports betting and betting in general then a good appreciation of how the market operates is essential for success. How can you possibly know how to beat bookmakers and the market if you do not know how they operate and work? So it is essential then that you know how prices and odds are formed. Usually the prices in the betting market represent a window at a fixed point in time.

The price is deemed to be accurate at that stage with a couple of percentage points. But this generic piece of “wisdom” is a long way from the mark because information from whatever source causes odds to shift. Usually there is a source for an odds shift and the betting firms tend to keep a very close eye on what everyone else is doing. This is to basically protect their own liabilities. If a certain firm is pricing 5/1 for a certain competitor when their true price and the price of everyone else is 2/1 then this firm is going to be taking an awful lot of action that they may not necessarily want.

So prices are pretty much in trim with each other from firm to firm and this is especially the case with the shorter priced runners. Usually it is professional odds compilers that form the basis for odds that are present in the market at a core level. Certain companies have odds compilers that are very strong in certain areas and once this becomes known then other companies often follow them. If you can find out who these companies are and how accurate they are and in what markets then you can base a good betting strategy around that.

Sometimes the sporting world seems to take it for granted that something will happen. Back in 1984 when Jimmy White narrowly lost to Steve Davis in the World Snooker final then it was believed by everyone that Jimmy would win the title one day…..it never happened. The same or similar was said of Greg Rusedski and Tim Henman, if one didn’t win a slam then the other would or both…..it never happened. Colin Montgomerie won numerous European order of merits and was European number one for years and it was just taken for granted that he would win a major….it didn’t happen.

Already there are warning signs for Andy Murray never winning a slam event after being knocked out in the 4th round of the US Open. While being 23 years of age leaves plenty of time on his side, I really don’t think that he would be able to win one at 28 years of age. Most of the major players won their first slam by the time they were 23 years of age. Murray has a habit of being defensive at the wrong times.

He seems to go into his shell during the latter stages of slams and this is going to be difficult to correct. Then when he does try to correct it he then becomes reckless and doesn’t seem to find the right balance. Personally I think he has 4 years left to effectively win a slam as the longer he goes on then it will get tougher mentally. That is only 16 tournaments in my mind and if you take away the ones where he is not fit either physically or mentally then that doesn’t leave an awful lot left.

This summers longest running transfer saga ended yesterday and James Milner finally joined Manchester City to take their summer spending past the £100 million mark. This comes hot on the trail of Mario Balotelli joining earlier in the week. Along with Jerome Boateng, David Silva, Alexander Kolarov and Yaya Toure.

All of these players are quality players but Stephen Ireland and Craig Bellamy have been moved out with Bellamy going out on a season’s loan to Championship side Cardiff City. The big question of course after all of this spending will be can Roberto Mancini turn that into a winning formula and bring a top four finish? Some people are touting the light blues as possible title challengers and they could be dark horses this season.

But to win the title this season then they have to hit the ground running and do that very quickly. Saturday’s 0-0 draw at White Hart Lane against Tottenham was encouraging but City were on the back foot for long periods of that game and keeper Joe Hart was man of the match which sort of told its own story. At the end of the day, Chelsea and Manchester United are settled sides which I think will make the difference.

I think that realistically, City will need a season to settle down but do not write them off as top four material as I think that they will do that this season. But I also feel that it will be the 2010-2011 season that sees them have a serious tilt at the title. I think it is only a matter of time before City win the league but the Chelsea and Manchester United teams look past their best of a few years ago so do not rule City out this season.

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I think that looking back on the season as a whole then it seems to have indicated a slightly lower overall standard in the Premier League compared to last season. I think it is fair to say that Manchester United have not been as strong this season minus Ronaldo and Tevez.

Replacing them with a constantly injured Michael Owen and a mainly misfiring Dimitar Berbatov has weakened them in my view and I think that Alex Ferguson will look to correct that in the summer if he is allowed to.

Chelsea have clearly been the strongest side in the league and it was a surprise to me that they only won it by one point. Arsenal are not improving fast enough and they do lack the vital steel in big games that they need if they are to move onto the next level. I think that Arsenal certainly need a top class keeper and probably three other top class players as well.

I just don’t think though that Arsene Wenger will spend the money so I expect more of the same next season from Arsenal. Manchester City will make a serious charge for the top four next season and I expect Mancini to move out and bring in a few players this summer. He took over just before the transfer window so he is still working with players who are not his.

Mancini is a top coach and once he starts working with the players that he wants then I expect Manchester City to improve next season and break into the top four probably at the expense of Spurs.

Arsenal are already settled as a top four side but that is not guaranteed and Wenger is shrewd enough to know that this is under threat.

The Champions League returns this week with the quarter-final second leg games kicking off. Can any team in Europe stop Barcelona? Personally it will be very difficult but it can obviously be done.

They are still nip and tuck with Real Madrid in La Liga and are no means certain to win that title. It is perfectly possible that Barcelona could end up winning both league and Champions League or nothing.

I really cannot see Arsenal beating them over two legs and I expect Barcelona to score at the Emirates. Lionel Messi said yesterday that Arsenal’s style is perfect for them which sounds ominous for the Gunners.

I cannot wait for the game but I am also equally looking forward to Bayern Munich against Manchester United as well. I think that the winner of this tie will reach the final although Bayern would have the greater trouble against the winner of the all French affair.

Barcelona will be happy to see Chelsea eliminated seeing as Chelsea have knocked them out several times in the past few years. If you fancy a flutter on bwin and don’t want to go for the big boys and you like dark horses then Bordeaux have really impressed me.

No French winner since 1993 with Marseilles and I would not back against Laurent Blanc’s men doing something special. They already topped their group which included Bayern and Juventus so they have to be taken very seriously. My tips for the last four are no big surprise.

MANCHESTER UNITED, BARCELONA, INTER MILAN and BORDEAUX to edge it

I often hate being wrong but not in this instance. When you saw that Fulham were paired against Shakhtar Donetsk who were the holders and then had to travel to play one of the top Serie A sides in Juventus then I didn’t hold much hope out for Fulham reaching the last eight of the Europa League.

I didn’t watch the game last night but I was staggered to see that Fulham had beaten Juventus 4-1 at Craven Cottage. It has to be said though that Fulham have been fortunate in the tie. The heavily deflected away goal in Turin and then the soft dismissal of Fabio Cannavaro last night greatly helped the Londoners.

It is staggering to think that Fulham with their small squad are in the last eight of two major cups and they still have the FA Cup quarter-final replay at Tottenham to come next week. A good night all round then for the two English representatives with Liverpool beating Lille 3-0 at Anfield.

I did mention though about 1-0 deficits being difficult to overcome and there was a clear cut chance in the first half when the Lille striker was one on one with Pepe Reina and should have scored. Memories of the Lyon game came flooding back but with Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard back then Liverpool could really do something in this competition.

Plenty of goals last night in the Europa League and I also watched the highly entertaining game between Werder Bremen and Valencia which finished 4-4 and 5-5 on aggregate with the Spaniards going through on away goals.

There will be some great sides in the last 8 with Hamburg still being in with a great chance of reaching the final which will be in their own stadium. We also have big sides like Benfica and Valencia still left in as well so it will be a tough draw for everyone and no more weak sides at this stage.

After watching the Chelsea vs Inter Milan game last night, I have to say that Inter Milan do look like a side who could go all the way. Not many teams go to Stamford Bridge and make them look ordinary.

But that has to be down to Mourinho and nothing else. He knew the styles of people like Lampard and Drogba and quite a few others. He has such a keen interest in Chelsea that he must watch all their games.

I had a feeling before the game that it wasn’t going to be Chelsea’s night…..hard to explain. But after 30 mins, I thought Chelsea looked in trouble even though the score was still 0-0. Inter had reduced Chelsea to one single Michael Ballack effort from range and that continued until Chelsea had a good spell in the final ten minutes of the first half and the first ten minutes of the second.

Inter deserved to go through over two legs and Chelsea’s quest for their Holy Grail of the Champions League goes on. I said at the start though that I didn’t think any English sides would win it and I still stand by that.

I also said that I didn’t expect all three English clubs to make the last 8 after the draw for the 2nd round came out. I am not getting carried away by Manchester United and Arsenal’s thumping wins last week either. Both Porto and Milan looked weak and there will be far stronger opposition to come.

CSKA Moscow showed what they are about once again getting a great 2-1 win away to Sevilla to progress 3-2 on aggregate. I also expect both Bordeaux and Barcelona to progress tonight.

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The next two games for Liverpool could well break their entire season. They already trail Tottenham by 4pts with nine games to go in the race for 4th place in the Premier League.

But if Man Cty win their two games in hand then the deficit could well be 7pts and not 4pts. Also Liverpool have a tricky 1-0 deficit to overcome in the Europa League on Thursday and I only mentioned last week about 1-0 deficits being tricky to overcome in Europe when I was talking about Lyon against Real Madrid.

Also, I wrote an article yesterday about Birmingham versus Everton? Guess who had some money on Everton not winning……me! Although I wasn’t feeling too good when Everton led 2-0 early on but a 2-2 draw was brilliant for me…….like I said in the article……too close to call for Everton to be 2.35 away from home.

Aston Villa lost some ground slightly in the race for 4th by drawing 0-0 at Stoke but if they win their two games in hand then they will match Spurs who are currently in 4th place.

At the bottom then you start to feel that Burnley are really struggling. On a scale of 1 to 10, their loss at home to Wolves yesterday was a 10! Just one draw and fourteen defeats away from home tells its own story for Burnley and if they cannot pick up points away from home then they look doomed to me.

They have another massive six pointer next week away to Wigan and if they lose that then the writing really will be on the wall. I think that any team who concedes 46 goals in 15 away games at a rate of 3 per match is going to struggle to pick up points.

I could never understand the appointment of Brian Laws, just got sacked from Sheff Wed for them not being good enough a full division lower and with no experience of top flight management and he gets the Burnley job.

Seems to me like that was an “on the cheap” appointment.

Bordeaux had a very good result in the last 16 of the Champions League last night winning 1-0 away to Olympiakos. While their Greek opponents may not be the strongest they could have faced, any away win in this competition is a great result.

You would have to fancy Laurent Blanc’s side to reach the last 8 now and they are having a great season as they are also top of the league in France. It looks as though Blanc has ended the dominance of Lyon in recent seasons and he does appear to be a very shrewd operator.

So much so that Alex Ferguson is alleged to want him to replace him when he finally steps down at Old Trafford. Bordeaux could be the surprise package in this competition as I simply do not expect anyone to turn them over.

Everyone speaks of Barcelona, Real, Inter and the three big English clubs but no one mentions Bordeaux as possible winners of this competition. They came through a group that included Bayern Munich and Juventus and topped that group so they are clearly a very good side.

Barcelona also got a good result drawing 1-1 away at Stuttgart. I expect them to complete the job at the Nou Camp. I like this new format for spacing the games out as it gives me the opportunity to watch more football.

Usually with the old system in previous years, games clashed more and with four English clubs in action then you couldn’t watch all four. Really looking forward to Inter Milan against Chelsea in the San Siro tonight.

I think that Chelsea have the edge but the tie seems close to call. I did say a few weeks ago that all three ties involving the English clubs seemed close and I expected one of them to get knocked out just going by the law of averages.

Still time for that

After watching the Porto vs Arsenal game last night I must confess to having never seen a goal like Porto’s second in my entire life. Arsenal basically gave Porto two goals and the win.

They were already reeling from their goalkeeper Fabianski fumbling a cross into his own net after only 10 minutes. They managed to overcome that though and made it 1-1 and looked on top.

In the second half, Sol Campbell passed back to Fabianski under pressure from their striker and the keeper picked it up. Arsene Wenger claimed that the contact with his leg was accidental and wasn’t a back pass.

So the referee awards an indirect free kick to Porto inside the Arsenal penalty area. At this stage most of the other players are at the other end of the pitch as Porto had countered very quickly. Fabianksi has hold of the ball and the referee orders him to give it back.

Fabianksi tosses the ball to the referee who places it on the floor and blows his whistle. The two quick thinking Porto players take a quick free kick. Campbell tries to stop them and is blocked by the referee. The first Porto player passes to the other player about eight yards out who scores past a startled Fabianksi.

In all my years of watching football I have never seen a goal like this. Despite these calamities, I still fancy Arsenal to go through, the away goal I feel will prove decisive and in the two previous games at home between them, Arsenal have won 2-0 and 4-0 with the 4-0 result being fairly recent.

I also said Yesterday that Manchester United were the only English team to win in the Dragao, Chelsea won there in the group stages this season

See you soon

Carl