On The Brink….

Not much was confirmed last night but football fans (and traders) already have the first explosive night of the season lined up on Wednesday December 7th. This is the night that the fate of both Manchester clubs will be decided. Both Manchester clubs are on the brink of elimination and for Manchester city it isn’t looking good. Manchester united still have their fate in their own hands but if they have another off-night we could well see both Man Utd and Man city playing in the Europa league after Christmas.

Yes, Thursday nights and Channel 5, unthinkable at the start of the season!

Pre-match Movement

I was quite pleased with my pre-match trading yesterday. In yesterdays post I mentioned that I thought even money (2.0) on Under 2.5 goals in the City and the United matches looked a bit high. Well, they both steamed during the day and it really was a low risk high reward trade that paid off. Man Utd-Benfica Under 2.5 Goals went from 2 down to 1.90 at kick off, whilst Napoli-Man City Under 2.5 Goals went from 2 down to 1.83. Total profit of 27 ticks from those two trades!

Incidentally, both matches finished Over 2.5 goals but thankfully that doesn’t matter in this instance.

 The outlined Manchester United drift continued after yesterdays post as it became clear that Wayne Rooney definitely wasn’t playing. Man Utd went from 1.66 up to 1.75 and as we all know by now, failed to win the match after drawing 2-2. You have to feel for some of the draw layers who were rejoicing the Man Utd goal when Fletcher scored only to be pegged back to square one just 80 seconds later!

I missed the biggest pre-match movement of them all, which was Inter Milan who went from a morning price of 2.70 up to a kick off price of 3.35, nice work if you caught that! It wasn’t a surprising move either, Inter Milan are a team that is out of favour with the markets at the moment and no one has much faith in them due to recent form and events. Scary to think about how dominant they were just 18 months ago!

To Qualify

 Napoli are 1.40 favourites to progress at the expense of Man City. If Napoli win in Villareal then they are through. Man City have to beat Bayern Munich and hope Napoli slip up if they are to qualify. It’s not looking good but its certainly not the mission impossible for Man City that the media are making it out to be. Villareal aren’t the type of side to go down without a fight and might have a better team by the time the fixture comes around so we will have to see. Bayern Munich have already qualified and won the group so it could be a great time to play them for Man City.

Man Utd are 1.20 to progress ahead of Basle. They need to avoid defeat in order to progress. A scenario they last experienced in 2005 when they went to Benfica needing a draw to qualify. They were pretty hot favourites to qualify that night too before slumping to a 2-1 defeat so anything is possible.

Either way, it’s going to be an entertaining night on December 7^th.