Bad Run Of Form Continues

My run of bad form has continued with losing day after losing day leaving me with a total profit of £720.83 for the month and a strike rate of 54% which is clearly not good enough. Still, for the time being I’m still in profit and will be looking to improve on that before the month is out.

I’ve learnt a few lessons though, the first and foremost is to never bet on cup games or friendlies ever again. Although every manager should take cup competitions seriously it seems to me as though many don’t. Fixtures played over two legs are hard to predict with teams playing for draws or fielding their second string side when a few goals up from the first leg.

Everything started to go wrong on Tuesday when Francis Jeffers was sent off for my fancied team Sheffield Wednesday in their carling cup tie with Port Vale. Wednesday were clearly the better side for the best part of 45 minutes but fell apart after going down to ten men. Vale went on to win the game 2-0 and I lost £250. I put the loss down to uncontrollable circumstances; Wednesday would have won the game if Jeffers had not been dismissed.

On Wednesday I tipped Wigan and West Brom to win their respective cup games, Wigan favourites for their trip to Blackpool never turned up and were 3-0 down before half time. West Brom looked a shoe in at home to second division Rotherham and I thought it would be plain sailing when Craig Beattie put West Brom ahead after 10 minutes but Rotherham found a route to goal and equalised to make it 1-1 before half time. Graeme Dorrans put West Brom 2-1 up shortly after the break but Rotherham pegged them back once more and the game ended in a draw.

Thursday was one of the worst nights I’ve had for a long time with an overall loss of £1,630.75. Only one of my six tips came in. Aston Villa cost me dearly after they failed to qualify for the next stage of the Europa league. Villa have been a real nightmare from a betting perspective this season, losing at home to Wigan, beating Liverpool at Anfield and then crashing out of their only real chance of silverware to a side they should have easily beat.

The downward spiral continued into Friday when the one game I tipped for Over 2.5 goals ended 0-0.  The UEFA Super Cup between Barcelona and Shaktar was probably one of dullest 90 minutes of football I’ve had the displeasure of watching this season.  Barcelona had their first team out and with an attacking line up of Lionel Messi, Zlatan Ibrahamovic and Thierry Henry you would expect a goal or two. Infact, the game went into extra time and it wasn’t until the 115^th minute that the deadline was finally broken. For me it meant a loss of £500. In my other bet of the night I picked Millwall to beat Brighton in their league one meeting, Millwall took the lead early on but conceded in the 70^th minute in a match which ended 1-1.