football | Thursday, August 4, 2022 5:43 PM (Revised at: Monday, August 8, 2022 11:24 AM)

From The Betfred Trading Room: Love Remains for Liverpool. No Love For Man United

Andrew Brocker

The Premier League season is about to kickoff. While the weekend’s matches will no doubt receive plenty of attention from punters, today Charlie Walker from the Betfred trading room shares his analysis of the outright markets prior to the season kickoff. Which teams have received the serious money in outright markets? And where is the money heading this weekend?

Heading into the season, what have been the biggest outright bets taken across the major European leagues?

As expected the English leagues take the largest bets, the Premier League has seen plenty of interest in Liverpool after the Community Shield especially with a couple of 5 figure each way bets on them.

In terms of other European leagues there hasn’t been a great deal of interest, this tends to be due to the price of Bayern Munich & PSG really. They will go in plenty of accumulator bets however not so much hefty singles!

Outside of the top tier, a 5 figure bet on Norwich to bounce straight back up as champions. Then we have also seen a consistent flow of money for Sheff Wed (League 1) & Stockport (League 2)

Any surprises in bets taken for the Premier League winner market or is it all one way traffic for Man City?

It’s been all Liverpool within the last week with punters clearly not seeing them being out of the top 2.

We have pushed the price out on Liverpool and will likely have them for over the million pound mark come kick-off. Bits and pieces for the North London clubs with them having a good pre-season and what can be considered a successful transfer window so far.

Normally we’ll see cash for Man Utd regardless, however this year they are completely friendless in the market. Chelsea as well have been very friendless as opposed to recent years.

Most would expect the three promotion clubs to make an immediate drop back to the Championship. But have there been any surprises in bets taken for the relegation market?

Everton (7/2 from 6/1) though it’s not a huge surprise with the lack of incomings in the transfer market.

But recently it’s been Leicester (Now 12/1), they’ve lost Kasper Schmeichel and there are rumours of Fofana and Maddison going too, this hasn’t bypassed the punters and over the last week they’ve attracted plenty of money to struggle this season.

A lot of talk surrounding Spurs coming into this season. What has the interest been like for Tottenham?

They got a lot of their business done early in the window and it was at that point we saw all of the money coming for them for the title, over the last few weeks we’ve seen some large bets on them to maintain their top 4 status.

Have any large bets been taken for other more obscure/exotic Premier League outrights?

We saw a flood of bets after Gabriel Jesus’ pre-season exploits in the Top Goalscorer market (12/1 from 33/1) then on top of that every man and his dog is wanting to be on Erling Haaland too, he’s gone from 5/1 to 11/4 in that market.

In the ‘Without Top 6’ market we have taken plenty of money on West Ham rather than the favourites for the market Newcastle.

In our Goalscorer match bets there has been support for Callum Wilson to outscore Michail Antonio and Dominic Calvert-Lewin to outcore Patrick Bamford (the training ground injury to DCL won’t help there).

In the Bottom half betting there have been a few people sniffing around Newcastle over the last week or so, whether this is down to the transfer inactivity I don’t know but the price is definitely shortening there.

Opening weekend is always greatly anticipated by punters both casual and professional. Which clubs have been receiving the heavy betting for the weekend’s games?

From the top tier the two most well backed sides have been Aston Villa & Chelsea.

People realise Bournemouth have done very little business and are very much expected to struggle whereas Villa on the other hand have been very active and have looked to have had a very solid pre-season and should push on.

Chelsea, whilst they haven’t been that well supported in the outright market they have been fairly well backed to get 3 pts on the board here. Everton will not be helped by the lack of striker for this game and it’s since the Calvert-Lewin news the price has really shifted.

Finally, any, let’s say, curious bets taken for matches outside of the Premier League?

I wouldn’t go as far as curious as they were heavily backed week in week out last season too but Stockport have been backed into favouritism away at Stevenage despite falling to a 3-2 defeat against Barrow last weekend who were the favourites for relegation!