Approaches to the Goal List: Part Two (IN PLAY)

A good first weekend for the Goal List to go live and hopefully you managed to use the approaches in my last post to make some nice profits. In this post I aim to give you some more ideas about how you can approach matches on the Goal List from an In Play perspective.

Lay the draw late on in matches:

Let’s be honest, laying the draw is where we all started out as sports traders. It was simple, there were plenty of opportunities and it worked… for a while. Unfortunately laying the draw pre match does not work anymore, at least not in the way it used to. Some still think it does and use it regularly but in my opinion, these traders are living in the past and showing an astonishing lack of imagination.

What does work is laying the draw in play at ‘knock down’ prices. And for the purposes of the Goal List this can be a valuable weapon!

Take this weekend’s match between Millwall and (Dirty) Leeds. The game was 0-0 at Half Time and in the 47^th minute Luke Varney was sent off for Leeds. Despite the game not going entirely as we expected in the first half, the home side now had a man advantage and a quick glance at ‘Soccerway’ showed us two important statistics:

• The LAST goal in Leeds’ eight away matches this season has been scored in the following minutes: 80, 73, 77, 90, 79, 77, 66 and 83.

• Millwall have scored 12 goals in their last five home games.

Of course, another quick look at the Goal List statistics page shows that 97.7% of Goal List matches have at least one goal.

Personally I used this information to lay the draw at around evens and waited patiently for the goal. Thankfully it came in the 85^th minute and the profit was in the bank.

With the correct information and the accurate expectancy of goals in a match, laying the draw late on in Goal List matches which are 0-0 or even 1-1 late on is a no brainer for me. Of course I would always suggest looking for extra statistics to further back up your decision.

*to play this in a more conservative fashion why not look to lay the draw at Half Time and green up after the first goal in the second half.

Other in play approaches:

Lay the draw in the Half Time market:

Look at the statistics page. 143 of the 175 matches to feature on the Goal List have seen a goal scored in the first half. A bit of deeper analysis and some in play stats from the first 15-20 minutes of a match are a bonus. Then simply lay the draw in the HT market, or even lay 0-0 in the HT correct score market. If a goal goes in before Half Time, you my friend are a winner.

Back over 1.5 goals at Half Time:

In my last post ‘Approaches to the Goal List Part One’ I explained the approach of laying under 2.5 or 3.5 goals at Half Time. Well this is very similar. Again it is important to use in play statistics from the first half to aid your decision. So far 87.4% of Goal List matches have seen at least two goals. Use this information to your advantage.

Hopefully this has given you some more food for thought about how you can profit from the Goal List. It is important to note that blindly picking one of these approaches and applying it to all the matches would be lazy and probably an unproductive way to spend your time. Put a bit of science into it, follow the statistics and use a sensible staking plan and I’m sure you’ll come up smiling.

On a seperate note I have been pleasantly surprised at the response this blog and the Goal List selections have received and since going live last week it has had well over 3000 views. I am also encouraged by the fact that many are already looking at creating fresh trading strategies off the back of the Goal List picks and look forward to discussing more different approaches in the coming months.