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My Journey to Professional Football-Betting
Observations and thoughts of a pre-professional football bettor with occassional comments by J Armstrong. Updated at least once weekly.

by Daniel Andersson

Date: 4 March 2008

The Effect of Injuries and Suspensions/Champions League Preview

One thing that stood out from this weekend, and the recent rounds, was the effects of injuries and suspensions of key players.

This is one thing that can take some time to properly assess, time I haven't had recently. You have to judge the importance of the player and the quality of the replacing player. The importance of the injured player isn't just how big star status he has but also how important he is in the tactical dispositions of the team, for instance a defender that guides and keeps the defensive play well or the defensive/balance player on midfield. Just think of what a dip Real Madrid had when Makelele left or a while back when Chelsea lived or died with Terry.

This weekend there were quite a few teams that were very affected by this, in my opinion.

First off was Tottenham who got trampled by Birmingham. They have had defensive problems earlier this season which was begining to look better with players coming back and the purchase of Woodgate. But now with injuries and suspensions the troubles have reappeared.

Then there was the game between Juventus and Fiorentina. Both teams were affected by an absence of players. But here I judged Juventus to still be stronger and placed a bet on them and a big reason for this was Juventus' good play without results in their recent games. Back to the missing players and I can say that in retrospect I misjudged this.

With both Mutu and Liverani missing I thought that the loss of Chiellini for Juve wasn't that terrible. I believed that Legrottaglie and Buffon could coordinate the defence without him. Nedved has his best days behind him and Palladino could, on a good day, easily replace him. Chiellini's absence from an ordinarily weak defence turned out to be very clear at two specific times when his aggression would have been needed. At the last two goals from Fiorentina, Juventus showed the most indifferent defence I have seen for a long time.

Sampdoria, who deserved to win, didn't manage to kill off the game against Torino with some strong players missing.

Villareal showed some very weak and slow attacking against I must say, a strong Osasuna defence without Rossi and Cani. With them some speed and creativity would have been added and they might could have broken down Osasuna. Although what was really missing was offensive runs which any player can contribute, all it takes is some motivation and will to win.

Then Inter lost their first league game with a B-team against Napoli. I can't say anything about this because I didn't see it.

Other than Juventus I also bet on Arsenal -0.75, Roma -0.75, Sevilla (away) -0.25 and Betis -0.5.

I really regret betting on Sevilla, it wasn't very well thought through. They have an extremely important CL fixture Tuesday and they have always had problems against Depor away who also is begining to show some form and are fighting for survival.

In the Champions League there are some very interesting games but it is hard to find good bets since the bookies are very good at setting lines in these high profile games.

The two games of most interest to me is Milan - Arsenal and Inter - Liverpool. Now we have to wait till later next week but it will be very interesting to see if Mancini's Inter can turn that game around. Hopefully for all Inter fans Mancini doesn't go into the game with some idiot tactics like the previous game. That isn't very likely though, they will probably go full out and can very well turn it around although Benitez is very good tactically in Euro competitions and can just as well edge Inter out and defend their two goal lead.

Milan - Arsenal is a very interesting game with the tactically superior Milan facing Wengers eye candy football. After Arsenal's display this weekend they don't look like much of a threat to Milan's strong (if they want to) defence. And with one of the highest quality midfield's in the world Milan can be too tough for Arsenal. But even though Milan stands as favourites, and rightly so, Arsenal can stand victorious if they can deal with the pressure and not get caught up in the tactical strougle to make the game very midfield oriented and slow that Milan most likely will try to do. They need to keep their speed and also not be afraid to take long distance shots, which they seem to avoid at all costs some times, to open up a probable very tight central defence from Milan.

Another scenario that may develop is a very tough game. This because of the importance of the game and also that it would favour Milan. Milan usually isn't that fond of that sort of games but here it could be wise to take it to that. Even though Arsenal has shown they can deal with that sort of games against weaker opositions such a game would mean alot of free-kicks and in those situations, Milan's is superior. Depending on their starting eleven, they can have four strong headers in their back four and they also have one of the two best deadball players in the world in Pirlo and Arsenal may have a one of the best midfielders in the world in Fabregas but a dead ball man he is not despite his efforts.

Arsenal's chance in this game is if they can make it a very open and well played game, keep up the speed in their attack (and not slow down just to keep the ball within the team), daring to finish from long distance and should Adebayor begin to score in Europe. Even in this kind of game, Milan have a big chance though but I think then it would favour Arsenal.

 

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