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Spreadex’s Andy MacKenzie analyses how teams performed compared to their pre-season odds, and finds that it has been a miserable season on Merseyside.
The Premier League may be done and dusted for another year – but how does the final table look when it comes to teams’ performances based on their pre-season betting odds? We all know that Chelsea ended up as champions and QPR, Burnley and Hull were relegated however those outcomes, the Tigers aside perhaps, would not really have been too far off most pundits’ predictions at the start of the campaign.
So below we take a look at which teams over-performed and which clubs under-performed last term compared to their pre-season football spread betting Points Predictions as offered by Spreadex.
These spread betting markets offer punters the chance to ‘buy’ or ‘sell’ on a predicted final haul of points for each team. And as the ‘spread’ is updated after every game played, bets can be opened and closed as the season progresses allowing betters to take a profit or cut a loss at any point of the campaign.
As the table below shows, we hail Southampton as the spread betting Premier League champions for 2014-15 as they outperformed their pre-season prediction by a massive 16.25 points.
But it’s Everton, Liverpool and QPR who occupy the relegation spots as they underperformed their pre-season predictions by 16.75, 9.25 and 8 points respectively.
As well as the phenomenal work undertaken by Ronald Koeman at St Mary’s, the table also highlights how well Garry Monk and Mark Hughes have performed at Swansea and Stoke. There were many who predicted a season of struggle at the Liberty, but the Swans finished an impressive eighth in the table on 56 points and even shrugged off the loss of top-scorer Wilfried Bony with apparent ease.
Stoke finished ninth in the table for a second season in succession, improving marginally on a 50 point haul in 2013-14, with Hughes signing off on another solid campaign with a stunning 6-1 win over Liverpool. Crystal Palace, West Brom and West Ham all ended the season with better-than-expected points hauls although this was not ultimately enough to keep Sam Allardyce in position at the Boleyn.
Chelsea and Leicester were the only other two sides to end up with points totals beating their pre-season predictions while Burnley ended exactly on their predicted 33 point haul.
Arsenal, Tottenham, Villa and Man City all ended slightly shy of their pre-season points predictions and the final seven places, with the exception of QPR, are taken up by disappointing performances from northern clubs with Sunderland, Hull, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Everton and Liverpool all under-achieving when compared to their pre-season Spreadex points predictions.
It’s been a particular season of disappointment on Merseyside with expectations high at the start of the campaign after scintillating campaigns in 2013-14 from both the Toffees and the Reds. For spread betters, the table shows the teams that offered the most volatility and opportunity to try and profit from Points Predictions bets.
E.g. a £10 buy of Southampton points at 44.5 at the start of the season would have returned a £155 profit ((60 – 44.5) x £10) or a £10 sell of Everton points at 63 pre-season would have returned a £160 profit ((63 – 47) x £10).
However, remember that with spread betting, losses can exceed your initial stake or deposit. So a £10 sell of Southampton points at 43 at the start of the season would have led to a loss of £170 ((43 – 60) x £10) and a £10 buy of Everton points at 64.5 pre-season would have produced a loss of £175 ((47 – 64.5) x £10).
Be sure to look out for Spreadex’s 2015-16 Premier Points quotes in the summer and see if your view matches that of our traders for the next season.
