Talk to the brand

[peterbirks]

As I expected the second that Andy Ward said that Chelsea were the nap of the day at 8-to-11 to beat Manchester United, Chelsea appear to be heading for defeat. Personally, I hardly ever bet odds-on. "Back the better team that's getting points" is a good principle. So this was a no-bet game.

But let's not talk about that. Let's talk about the troubles at Manchester United. Me being me, this is not, of course, anything football-related. In the immortal words of Tessio in The Godfather, "tell Mike it was strictly business".

The Big Book of Football Managers' Clichés contains some classic one-liners (although not many one-worders; the best of these surely being Gordon Strachan's response to a reporter's request for a quick word. "Velocity", said our Gordon, before departing apace) and one of these is surely "No player is bigger than the club".

Unfortunately, in the case of Manchester United, this may not be true. The team's tour of the far east last summer, sans David Beckham, was poorly attended. Now it appears that shirt sales are falling as well and, most worryingly, a survey by a branding company found that 30% of "fans" now followed players rather than teams.

Manchester United will always fill their own ground, but that is a snippet of global income. No longer will 80,000 people be willing to watch a friendly in Singapore where the goalkeeper plays at centre-forward. The brand, as they say, is not what it was.

I suspect that Glazer may have taken the company private at just the wrong time.

Good.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I think they were 11/8 against? Anyway had a few quid on Manure at 3.5 and layed off as soon as they went ahead so made a bit.

Played any Royal Holdem on UB yet? Seem to attract lot of clueless players.

redsimon

Royal

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I've played 5000 hands of the bloody thing and it cost me $350. Horrible. I may write about this at some length. Looking at the stats, I suspect that I was bloody unlucky (although a closer study may reveal some other clues on how to increase winnings with some hands). This was compounded by the regular intrusion of players who didn't know that it was Royal Hold'Em. A further paradox was that this actually worked to their advantage, since something like QJ is not in that bad a shape against AK.

I did better at the tables where the players knew the rules and they just followed the 2+2 advice. This made it easy to put them on hands and to play virtually double-dummy.

PJ

[andy-ward-uk.livejournal.com]

If it makes any difference I got 2.48 on Betfair.

Erm, which it doesn't really.

Andy.

Prices up, value down

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I misread your post, where you wrote "11/8 on Betfair".

We who have been in the betting trade would have said "11/8 at Betfair" to avoid the confusion. But, mon mal, as they say in Quebec.

To be honest, that price was about right. Still a no-bet game, as far as I was concerned.

In fact, football games are only profitable for me (and, I suspect, for most customers) when I think the automatically - generated "correct score" prices fail to take into account extraneous factors. E.G, look at the average number of nil-nil draws on the opening day of the season, compared with the average number of nil-nil draws throughout the season.

Unless of course you know how to win friends and influence the right kind of people (goalkeepers, preferably).

PJ

Taxi for Fergie

[geoffchall.livejournal.com]

Gordon Strachan is responsible for a whole slew of gems. When asked where his team lost the game, he replied "out on the pitch". Asked why his team lost he said, "because the other team scored more goals than we did". I did so want him as our new manager before Pearce on the grounds that he had a sense of humour. Now of course I am a staunch Pearce loyalist.

Business may well indeed by business but a little gloating is called for. What I fail to understand is why Ferguson is so lionised as a mangerial genius. He was a good manager 1988-93 and lucked into a classy player (Cantona). He took a talented crop of youngsters and through necessity started to play them in his first team. He then bought expensive strikers to top them off as necessary.

Then his kids got older and no-one had bothered to nurture decent kids of the next generation. Sometimes this thing ebbs and flows. He shouldn't be blamed for the failures of recent times any more than he should be praised for the maturing of the Giggs/Beckham generation.