Christmas Spirit?

Well its been another exciting week in sport with the best news being England thrashing the Aussies. As I mentioned in my post last week I layed the draw from the beginning and was very fortunate that England took three quick wickets very early on Day One leaving me in a positive position from the start. I wasnt brave enough to let it run but did leave zero on the draw and green on any winning outcome .

The thing that struck me most about the match was the "Swann Factor." We now have a World Class spin bowler who can bowl at any time in a match not just on Day Five. No surprise that the media in Australia is praying for Shane Warne to come back because I can see a role reversal between the two nations and maybe we can have the Ashes for a decade or so. Lets hope so !

Below is a photo of who I reckon must be the most hated man in England right now.

He looks cool in his Newcastle track suit doesnt he? The below from the Guardian :

"Christmas must be coming, the Premier League has started to sack managers. This is the season of goodwill to all men but not if they are Chris Hughton whose departure from Newcastle United has confirmed that at St James' Park the spirit of pantomime is alive and well. If Hughton was Aladdin, restoring stability with the magic lamp of common sense, his successor,Alan Pardew, must be Buttons, which is about all he will have to spend.

The treatment of Hughton has been roundly condemned by fans, media and players. It seems his biggest mistake was in taking Newcastle to fifth place after the win at Arsenal. Next to losing matches, the worst thing a manager can do is to raise expectations to levels he will find difficult to maintain.

Apparently Hughton lacks managerial experience, which seems a bit rich coming from a club prepared to put Alan Shearer, whose experience of management was zilch, in charge towards the end of the season before last, when Newcastle were on their way down. Pardew is several sackings ahead of Hughton in experience and at least he is not a messiah, which should help.

Maybe, just maybe, Ashley will get this one right. Hughton was popular with the players but not so popular, apparently, that the team felt like breaking sweat at West Bromwich Albion last weekend, when Newcastle did not so much have an off day as a day off. A manager should never be one of the boys because boys occasionally play truant."

Well chat rooms, forums and the polls were not for Alan Pardew but Big Mike was as Maggie put it " Not for turning" so all the opinion fell on deaf ears. Personally I think he deserves a chance and I think it is a good appointment . Only time will tell ,but at West Ham he got us out of the Championship , to an FA Cup Final which being unbiased we were robbed of but most of all was tireless and shrewd in the transfer market. He is not naive enough to think he will last the five and half years on his contract which is why he got such a contract because when the time comes he will get a nice pay off. Football is a very fickle business and if it goes well he could be heading the next England manager market on Betfair ina few years time. So you might laugh but we had Keegan and Hoddle so why not? I remember when I went to watch West Ham play Aston Villa and they were at the top of the league and had a new manager in place called John Gregory. He was like sliced bread and the media loved his style and the way he spoke in a very forthright manner. He was being touted as the next England manager then. Where is he now? The media can pick you up and put you down very quickly in life.

Betting wise not a lot doing the last week. The racing kicked back of today in earnest with some proper stuff at Cheltenham and what a relief that was. I got stuck into the meeting and picked eight horses , two in each big field handicap race and also did a little e/w double which came in. I managed to get the winner in the 1.50 so a nice profit was made.



I havent managed to do any trading this week as I have had a couple of birthday do's and with one more tonight and three Christmas do's next week its a busy time.

I have read the X -Club manual a couple of times over but will need to do a lot of practise for a long time before I can get my head around all the stuff. One thing did hit me last evening when I watched an Argentian match on Betfair. I went onto the forum and read what peoples thoughts for the match were. One guy had put £300 on over 1.5 goals. No goals were forthcoming so after about twenty five minutes he said that he had taken a red book of £60 because he didnt want to lose his £ 300. Now this guy will never make money as far as I can see. You cannot do your homework, decide on a course of action and then bail out because the required result is'nt hit within twenty five minutes of your trade. In reality just one goal would have given him the opportunity to get out with a profit, or break even if the goal comes later on (within reason). To my mind he was overstaking and out of his comfort zone because otherwise while bail out? If he had bet £100 he would probably of let the trade run a lot longer than just panic. To compound his logic he said at half time he would lay the 0-0 full time result to get his £ 60 back. So as happens to all of us the game finished 0-0 and he lost £ 571.

The question is what would you have done in his situation? To me its the same in a lot of the blogs I read, mine included. Overstaking, taking a red to soon , closing winning trades to soon, chasing small losses and compounding them to bigger ones and not really knowing the dynamics of the markets before entering them. If I was Ian Erskine I could charge money for writing the obvious....Oh and by the way I did receive an email from him telling me why he deleted my comments on his blog and telling me that the bets were ahead this season but not by much , but over the last few seasons in his words he was "miles ahead." Maybe he meant "light years ahead" that would sound better. Sarcasm aside at least he sent me a reply.

Anyway I shall hope to trade some football this coming weekend as long as i dont get roped into anymore Christmas stuff, humbug !