'Not so' Hidden Opportunities

Goals were hard to come by this weekend. Consequently, The Goal List probably made a fairly swift exit from some inexperienced trader's bookmarks tab, as they plod on in their search for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Although not without stopping to send me some abuse on Twitter first mind (haha).

Sure, on the face of it I suppose it was a bad weekend because there was a lack of goals. This is shown by the figures for straight backing over 3.5 and over 4.5 goals.

Over 3.5 goals made a loss of 1.2pts
Over 4.5 goals made a loss of 5.5pts

Panic stations...?!

No. This is hardly disasterous and both remain very nicely in profit over the long term (Over 3.5 = +23.9pts & Over 4.5 = +43.6pts). I wouldn't lose any sleep over a combined loss of 6.7pts when one or two nice wins would easily cover it.

The real point of this post is to highlight the fact that despite it being a poor weekend on the goal front there were still plenty of opportunities to profit from Goal List selections in play. Three matches in particular stand out.

1. Derby v Birmingham (3-2):
The match was 1-0 right up until 70 odd minutes. After a flurry of goals between 73 and 85 minutes it ended 3-2 to Derby. I wasn't watching the markets at the time but my guess would be that under 2.5 probably reached circa 1.15 whilst under 3.5 and under 4.5 would have almost certainly been matched for plenty of pennies at 1.01, which of course was duly gubbed!

2. Manchester United v QPR (3-1):
I was trading this one and used a strategy mentioned more than once already on this blog in it's short lifetime (hence 'not so' hidden opportunities). I layed under 2.5 goals at half time at circa 1.30 and when QPR took the lead on 52 minutes I was confident enough of another few goals to let it run and take full profit. The only small annoyance is that I didn't lay any of the under 3.5.

3. Levante v Barcelona (0-4):
Another game which was 0-0 at half time. Again, I wasn't trading last night but under 2.5 and under 3.5 goals would certainly have been attractive prices to lay at half time. The goals came on 47', 51', 57', 63' and the rest is history.

Of course, not every match on the Goal List will feature goals. Not every match that is 0-0 at HT will go onto be a goal-fest in the second half (see Swansea v Liverpool yesterday!) but there are ways of picking out these matches. These type of trades are low risk and they come about far more often than you'd think. An important conclusion to draw from the above examples is the fact that the time of goals is just as important as the number of goals in a match when it comes to these selections.

The point I think most novice (and even some more experienced) traders fail to grasp is that you DON'T need to trade everything under the sun. Or even every game on the Goal List. Wait for the opportunities to present themselves. This blog is designed to give you the bones. It's up to you to flesh it out with further research and your own approach.