Who'd have thought back in August that we'd have said farewell to Sir Alex Ferguson by the end of the season? He's been such a larger than life figure in British (and, probably, world) football for so long now that a future without him is somewhat difficult to imagine. But I'll try... Firstly my sincere best wishes to David Moyes - a man I'd quite like to have seen in the dugout at Stamford Bridge. His task is monumental, and, a bit like Mr Major and Lady T, it's hard not to picture SAF operating somewhere stage-left in the background! A quick glance at the nascent Winner 2013-14 market for the Premiership makes the point quite nicely - Utd, City and Chelsea within a few ticks of each other at the time of writing, accounting for some 88% of the implied probability of one of the three winning the title. Interestingly the 'Next Man U Manager' market seems to have been around for ages prior to the announcement - and I hope the board are prepared to give Moyes the time to grow into the job and thereby save Bf the aggravation of setting up another one! For me, Utd are a lay for next year's title at this stage.
A couple of other men that I personally will be glad to see back in charge of premiership clubs next season will be Mssrs Hughes and Holloway.
The comments on the BBC website show a division of opinion over Mark Hughes and I can see why. But in my opinion he wasn't given sufficient time at City and I don't think his heart was ever really in the Fulham job from day one. Stoke have proved to be a tough nut to crack over the last few seasons, and whilst their style of football might not be the most scintillating to watch they have been extremely resilient. I remember one of the big bookies paying out on the 'Stoke to be relegated' bets quite early on in their first season in the Prem under Pulis. A publicity stunt it might have been, but to their credit Stoke actually did quite well that year, achieving the magic 40 points milestone with relative ease. I think the appointment of Hughes is a positive one and that he will grow the team well.
In my opinion Ian Holloway and his Blackpool team were a breath of fresh air when they gained promotion. Their free flowing, defensively naive style was great to watch and Holloway's post match musings were always entertaining. Part of me wanted to see how Zola would have got on with Watford had they been promoted but I'm happy that Holloway and The Eagles made it up.
A quick glance at the Relegation markets shows that both Hull and Palace are odds-on for the drop. I'm happy to oppose both at the moment - and am confident that those odds will allow a profit at some stage.
Trading wise the season has been unspectacularly steady. The staple of my trading arsenal remains the old faithful Scatter Gun trade - especially when played in Ligue 2 and the Argentinian top flight. Laying teams when 2 goals up has also shown a small but welcome profit, but my forays into correct score 'cascading' laying has proved to be a loser overall. This involves laying the current score to a fixed liability, and then laying to the same liability as the goals go in and the odds drop. When it works, it works brilliantly, but that hasn't happened consistently to generate a profit. I think it would have done had I laid to a stake - but to be honest I didn't do the maths and am not about to go back through all that lot to work it out!
I honestly think I've turned the 'Discipline Corner' this season. In the main I am positive this is due to record keeping. There's nothing like a set of figures leaping off the page yelling at you to 'stop being such a p***k, Dave!' to focus the mind on the task in hand. I still have the occasional lapse, but have come to terms with that. Sometimes these lapses work out OK - for example I know nothing about horse racing but that didn't stop me laying Dawn Approach in the Derby today for no real reason other than I believed him to have been over hyped! Others, inevitably, have gone horribly wrong! (Guess who laid O2.5 goals for stupid sums when Germany took the lead against Ecuador the other night!).
The 'close season' is not really closed - the Scandinavian and Icelandic leagues are great for my trading style, and there's a fair bit of Latin American action as well. The Open looms large in my sights now - after successful forays over the last year or so in the Masters and the Ryder Cup I'm confident that I've found a sustainable and profitable way to approach golf trading and am looking forward to honing that skill in the oldest (and greatest?) of the four majors. Who knows, I might even try trading tennis, again!
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