Over 2.5 Goals Market – 6 Things Most Punters Don’t Consider

The OVER & UNDER 2.5 GOALS markets are very popular with both the football betting punters and the traders on Betfair.

Every week plenty get involved in this market but it seems that the novices take a very basic approach to it. This usually involves just looking at the home teams previous few results along with the away teams previous few results and seeing if there had been lots of goals in there. The novices will jump to the conclusion that if both teams have been scoring, or conceding, for fun recently then this guarantees goals will come but this is not always the case.

There are many other things apart from form that a punter should consider before even putting a penny in this market, ask yourself, are YOU considering all of these?

Tactics

It is really important you have a good think about the actual tactics that the managers of either team will be playing with. If both teams have been scoring for fun in recent matches this might actually mean that both managers will be more cautious and you will see a tighter game which is not good for the goals markets.

Also, ask yourself if you think that both teams think they will win the match. An open match is good for goals but this is usually only ever produced when both teams are going for it. If you have one side happy to sit back and defend this is never good when looking for goals.

It is usually easy to get a good idea of the tactics of the managers just by looking at their line up and formation. Is Mourinho playing with only one striker? That means he is happy to “park the bus” and this will probably end Under 2.5 Goals.

Therefore, it is in your best interest not to get involved in this market until you know the team news.

Weather

Weather is very important also yet how many of us routinely check the weather forecast before a fixture?

Ideally you want the weather to be “fine”. No wind, no rain, no snow and not too hot usually means you will get a fair game of football with all players playing to the best of their ability.

Once the weather turns it becomes a bit of a lottery. The wind and rain can cause more mistakes but it can also cause those mistakes to be misplaced passes and scuffed shots. Sometimes wind and rain can actually cause goals but I would be very wary of getting involved in a match in this circumstances since you can never be too sure. I have often found that snowy circumstances can negatively affect the goal outcome as can overly hot weather. In those cases I would look to side with Under 2.5 Goals if an opportunity is present.

Next time you get involved in this market, check the weather forecast in that area, it might make you think very differently about your approach.

Referee

Do you ever think about the referee and the influence he might have? If you are getting involved in-play then take a moment to look at how the referee is performing. If the referee is letting the game flow then this is good for the goal expectation but if he is blowing his whistle for every minor thing and slowing down the overall tempo then you might want to side with unders no matter what the stats suggest you go with.

Personnel

I get the impression many punters do get their money in blind and do not even pay much attention to team news or even wait for the teams to be announced. If Man City are playing with Aguero up front I will be much more confident about a few goals being scored then if they had their back up striker. Some strikers are just not as good as putting the ball in the back of the net as others.

Motivation

You get many punters blindly backing Over 2.5 Goals when you get a big team like Chelsea or Man City at home to a team from the bottom half of the table. The logic is that since these teams are likely to win the match easily they will probably give them a thrashing and score Over 2.5 Goals in the process. However, this a bit of a mistake since in this case you are only relying on the favourite to score all the goals and there are probably better markets to explore in this case.

But also you need to consider the motivation of the favourite. Jose Mourinho will probably not be giving his team talk telling the team they need to score Over 2.5 Goals so punters can win their bets. He just wants a win and he will probably be just as happy with a 1-0 or 2-0 win if the match proves tougher then they expect.

If you are getting involved in-play you also need to consider the motivation also. I know many punters who regularly get stung backing teams like Barcelona or Real Madrid to score more goals late on when they might already be 3-0 or 4-0 up. They might still score another goal but the match is already won and their motivation to do so will not be very high in this case.

If the match was at 1-1 then this would be another story of course….

Tempo

This is something that you can only really ever confirm once the match goes in-play but this highlights just why it is better to only get involved on this market in-play rather then pre-match. A fast tempo will increase the goal expectancy whereas a slow tempo will decrease it. By watching the match and judging the tempo you can make your final decision about whether or not it is worth getting involved. However, I can imagine many regular punters probably just place their bet and do not even watch the action in many cases!