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Kevin Pullein
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Friday May 02, 2008
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English fans want players to
try their hardest even when they no longer need to. It is a strange desire but
one that can encourage value-for-money bets in the final few weeks of a season.
Bookmakers tend to assume that games between teams with nothing to play
for will be low-key affairs with very few bookings. This weekend there will be
two such games in the Premier League and 17 in the Football League. Meaningless
games do provoke fewer yellow and red cards than other games but only slightly
fewer and bookmakers sometimes overestimate the decrease. |
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On bookings indices 10 points are awarded
for each yellow card and 25 for each red. The average make-up in Football
League games played during the past 10 seasons was 33. In games played during
May between teams who both finished in the middle third of a table the average
bookings index make-up was 27 - slightly lower than usual.
A similar
pattern can be detected in the Premier League. The average bookings index
make-up during the last five seasons was 35. In games played on a final day
between teams with absolutely nothing left to play for the average make-up was
31.
The odd thing is that so many players in England are still
cautioned or dismissed when they have no reason to lunge into a tackle or
dispute a decision. It does not happen everywhere. Gianluca Vialli and Gabriele
Marcotti in their book, The Italian Job, say that in Italy players think it is
daft to waste energy unnecessarily. You can see their point but it is of little
use to bettors as bookmakers refuse to lay bets on many Serie A games at the
end of the season.
Bookings-related bets, both spread and fixed-odds,
are much more widely available on the Premier League than the Football League.
On the spreads you will have a good bet if you can buy for much less than 31 in
a meaningless Premier League game between two ordinarily behaved teams with an
even-tempered referee.
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