This weekend we see Everton v Manchester City kick off the Sunday ‘Merseyside v Manchester’ matches. I’ll look through the Markets on this match to determine if there’s any value to be had.
Match Odds:
Its notoriously difficult to make money on Match Result. This is due to people mainly betting on the Day of the Game, by which point the majority of news is known about the match, barring an injury in warm-up, as a result the Match Odds tend to have settled at roughly their ‘True Odds’ meaning only the bookmakers have margin in the selection and long-term money will not be made. I’ll rarely tip a Match Result unless it’s something I feel the market has got wrong.
This used to be a very good fixture for Everton having won 4 on the bounce between the years 2009 & 2013. They’ve not beaten Manchester City in the League since then though. Historically, it’s almost level pegging with 61 Wins for Everton, 63 for City and 43 Draws.
Everton have been a little hit and miss to watch this season, but are still displaying some respectable Shot Stats on the season so far. Using Shots on Target Ratio (SOTR), which is Shots on target taken vs Total Shots on Target per match Everton average 58%. This puts us around 7th in the League in terms of SOT Ratio. This is a good indicator of a team’s strength, but there’s obviously a lot more detail to go in to before betting. Below is the current League Table & SOTR Table, as you can see there are obvious similarities. I guess it’s probably obvious to say but if you’re having more Shots on Target than you’re conceding then you should do well, so you would expect this to show in the League Table.
A step further we can go with SOT data is we can roughly look at how many SOT it takes a team to finish a chance. Everton are one of the worst teams in the League for this now, taking roughly 3.4 shots on target for each goal. The League average for this season so far is 3.13. This either suggests we’re taking more shots with Low probability or that we have a little bit of improvement in results due if we continue performing to the same levels. Manchester City on the other hand are much more efficient taking, 2.7 shots on target per goal.
Everton are allowing on average 2.5 Shots on target per home fixture and Man City are allowing 3.6 per away fixture. Everton are also having on average 5.3 shots on target per home fixture and Man City are having around 5.1 on each away trip. The League averages here are 3.94 SOT allowed by home teams and 4.71 by away teams.
It’s not a perfect calculation as a lot more can go into it such as position of shot etc (A shot on target from a yard out Is obviously far more valuable than one from 40 yards). But given this is all the data we have available for free. This averages out that Everton will be taking roughly 4.5 SOT and City 3.8. City’s far more impressive conversion rate means that though they might be expected to take less shots, they’re more likely to convert them, working out that Everton could be expected to score roughly 1.31 (4.5/3.43) and City could be expected to score roughly 1.42 (3.8/2.683).
This isn’t perfect by any means, but suggests that this might be a tighter affair than the current match prices suggest. Everton bets priced 18/5 (betfred, VC) the Draw 3/1 (betfred, bet365) City 17/20 (Paddy Power, Betfair). I don’t like to oppose the Match Result market too much but Everton at 18/5 probably doesn’t look an awful bet this weekend, shrewder people than me will have gambled this into its current position though.
League Table & SOTR Table
| GP | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | PTs | Home | Away | Average | |||||
| Chelsea | 20 | 16 | 1 | 3 | 42 | 15 | 27 | 49 | Tottenham | 73.20% | 2 | 63.10% | 2 | 68.15% | 1 |
| Liverpool | 20 | 13 | 5 | 2 | 48 | 23 | 25 | 44 | Liverpool | 75.28% | 1 | 60.95% | 3 | 68.12% | 2 |
| Tottenham | 20 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 39 | 14 | 25 | 42 | Chelsea | 70.24% | 5 | 65.79% | 1 | 68.01% | 3 |
| Man. City | 20 | 13 | 3 | 4 | 41 | 22 | 19 | 42 | Man United | 71.15% | 3 | 58.97% | 6 | 65.06% | 4 |
| Arsenal | 20 | 12 | 5 | 3 | 44 | 22 | 22 | 41 | Man City | 71.08% | 4 | 58.62% | 7 | 64.85% | 5 |
| Man United | 20 | 11 | 6 | 3 | 31 | 19 | 12 | 39 | Southampton | 63.51% | 7 | 59.49% | 4 | 61.50% | 6 |
| Everton | 20 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 28 | 23 | 5 | 30 | Everton | 67.95% | 6 | 48.31% | 8 | 58.13% | 7 |
| West Brom | 20 | 8 | 5 | 7 | 28 | 24 | 4 | 29 | Arsenal | 56.52% | 8 | 59.04% | 5 | 57.78% | 8 |
| Bournemouth | 20 | 7 | 4 | 9 | 29 | 34 | -5 | 25 | Bournemouth | 53.85% | 9 | 37.93% | 16 | 45.89% | 9 |
| Southampton | 20 | 6 | 6 | 8 | 19 | 25 | -6 | 24 | Swansea | 50.00% | 11 | 41.24% | 11 | 45.62% | 10 |
| Stoke City | 20 | 6 | 6 | 8 | 24 | 32 | -8 | 24 | Crystal Palace | 45.98% | 16 | 44.68% | 9 | 45.33% | 11 |
| Burnley FC | 20 | 7 | 2 | 11 | 22 | 31 | -9 | 23 | Watford | 51.43% | 10 | 38.95% | 15 | 45.19% | 12 |
| West Ham | 20 | 6 | 4 | 10 | 23 | 35 | -12 | 22 | Stoke | 48.84% | 12 | 37.65% | 17 | 43.24% | 13 |
| Watford | 20 | 6 | 4 | 10 | 23 | 36 | -13 | 22 | Leicester | 46.67% | 15 | 39.33% | 14 | 43.00% | 14 |
| Leicester City | 20 | 5 | 6 | 9 | 24 | 31 | -7 | 21 | West Brom | 40.91% | 17 | 41.18% | 12 | 41.04% | 15 |
| Middlesbrough | 20 | 4 | 7 | 9 | 17 | 22 | -5 | 19 | Middlesbrough | 47.37% | 13 | 31.94% | 18 | 39.66% | 16 |
| Crystal Palace | 20 | 4 | 4 | 12 | 30 | 37 | -7 | 16 | West Ham | 37.21% | 18 | 40.66% | 13 | 38.93% | 17 |
| Sunderland | 20 | 4 | 3 | 13 | 19 | 37 | -18 | 15 | Hull | 33.33% | 20 | 41.49% | 10 | 37.41% | 18 |
| Swansea City | 20 | 4 | 3 | 13 | 23 | 45 | -22 | 15 | Burnley | 46.81% | 14 | 19.54% | 20 | 33.17% | 19 |
| Hull City | 20 | 3 | 4 | 13 | 17 | 44 | -27 | 13 | Sunderland | 34.95% | 19 | 27.59% | 19 | 31.27% | 20 |
First Goalscorer:
As I’ve mentioned I don’t like to oppose the Match result market prices too often, but these can guide us into value in other markets, quite often goal-scorer markets can provide a little value. The current match odds suggest City have a 58.4% chance of scoring the 1st goal, and Everton 35.7%, the remaining % would be no goal. Using the line-ups I would expect I have priced the 1st goal-scorer market as follows:
| Everton | 35.67% | 100 | Best | City | 58.36% | 100 | Best |
| Lukaku | 32.00% | 8.8 | 7 | Aguero | 33.00% | 5.1921 | 4.3 |
| Mirallas | 15.00% | 19 | 12 | Sterling | 12.00% | 14.278 | 8.5 |
| Valencia | 14.00% | 20 | 11 | Silva | 12.00% | 14.278 | 11 |
| Barkley | 12.00% | 23 | 13 | KDB | 19.00% | 9.0179 | 7.5 |
| Barry | 3.00% | 93 | 41 | Zabaleta | 3.00% | 57.113 | 41 |
| Schneiderlin | 5.00% | 56 | n/a | Toure | 11.00% | 15.576 | 9 |
| Baines | 9.00% | 31 | 23 | Kolarov | 4.00% | 42.835 | 26 |
| Funes Mori | 3.00% | 93 | 51 | Stones | 2.00% | 85.67 | 41 |
| Williams | 3.00% | 93 | 61 | Otamendi | 3.00% | 57.113 | 34 |
| Coleman | 4.00% | 70 | 31 | Sagna | 1.00% | 171.34 | 51 |
As you can see there aren’t any prices on offer that I think represent value. I would avoid betting on this for now.
Bookings
This is a tough market to price and as such there’s quite often a little bit of value to be found. I think there are 4 players that represent value in this market based on their career stats. Those 4 players are:
Romelu Lukaku 13/2 (Paddy Power)
Leighton Baines 4/1 (Paddy Power)
Seamus Coleman 9/2 (Paddy Power)
Nicolas Otamendi 15/8 (Paddy Power)
Romelu is usually in for 0.08 cards per match, but given Everton will be underdogs in this game and are expected to receive more cards this increases to around 0.15. Similarly, Seamus Coleman rises from 0.15 to 0.24 and Baines 0.12 to 0.21.
Otamendi is in for around 0.33 and Everton are an above average opponent so City are in for slightly more than they would normally be moving him from 0.33 to 0.36.
I think each of these represents a decent bet, particularly the 9/2 on offer for Seamus Coleman when you consider his day is going to be spent marking tricky players such as KBD, Sterling & Silva.