I have taken my opening positions in the Champions League 2013/2014 market. Do not follow this blindly, this is only to document my thoughts. Only follow if you are experienced. These are not straight bets, they are to trade. If you have questions, please tweet me @SportstraderNL
I have taken the following positions. My initial tought is to leave this after the group phase. Ofcourse I will manage this and will give updates after each matchday. I expect all to qualify for the second round and are priced up bigger than they should be. I have taken Juventus after their point loss yesterday against Kopenhagen.
Date: 18/9/2013 20:45(UTC+1) Match: FC Barcelona - Ajax Amsterdam Competition: Champions League Pick: BTTS NO Odds: 2.12 Bookmaker: Marathonbet Stake: 10/10
Barcelona is the huge favorite for this game (1.10). Normally before the transferwindow I would say Ajax would have a chance, but after the loss of Eriksen and Alderweireld the Ajax team will be to weak in my opinion. Other loss is Siem de Jong who had a collapsed lung, but reports are saying he is recovered and will start in the first eleven tonight. He certainly is not fully fit yet. Ajax had a poor performance against PEC Zwolle. Zwolle certainly is a good team but Ajax only managed to produce 3 shots on target. Ajax have get replacement in Duarte for Eriksen, he has a lot of potential but if he will be ready to show it against Barcelona? I think it is too early for him.
Sigthorsson is a real striker, not at all a Ajax player in my opinion, his techinal ability is poor, he has good striker qualities but not the technical skills to do well in the Ajax-system. Often you see attacks stops at him because a ball springs off his foot. He also was replaced by Hoesen in the last game. Hoesen is a great player with a great potential but he is not in great form lately.
I hope Ajax will surprise me tonight and give Barça a bit of resistance, but I am pessimistic. It would be good for UEFA-coefficients which Holland badly need. But I think this price represents value, I think Ajax have a 20% chance of scoring, so I decided to turn off my emotions and place the bet.
Date: 18/9/2013 20:45(UTC+1) Match: Olympique Marseille - Arsenal Competition: Champions League Pick: Aaron Ramsey Anytime Goalscorer Odds: 7.50 Bookmaker: Betfred Stake: 10/10
Normally I only focus on match odds, over/unders and for a special system on First Goalscorer but I think I have found some value in this price. As you have seen recently Aaron Ramsey finally has become the player Wenger saw in him and I am happy with that as an Arsenal fan. He is great in midfield en also scoring lots of goals lately.
He scored one or more goals in three out of Arsenals total of six offical matches played. Also he scored in two of the three offical away matches Arsenal played this season. Ramsey is a different player than in past years and I believe this price is huge value. Based on his form it should be around 2.0 maybe cause he is a midfielder 3.0. Although Cazorla is injured, most bookies priced him up around 3.5-4.0. This strenghts me in the believe this price is value.
Other tip in this match was yesterday given on Twitter. See the tweet below.
Champions League: Marseille - Arsenal : Arsenal to win @ 2.60 (Tempobet) Stake: 10/10 #sportstradernltip
— Dutch Investor (@SportstraderNL) September 17, 2013
Date: 28/8/2013 18:30(UTC+1) Match: AC Milan - PSV Eindhoven Competition: UEFA Champions League Pick: PSV Eindhoven +0.5 Odds: 2.36 Bookmaker: Betvictor Stake: 10/10
Last week was a pretty exciting game. PSV was again playing with the joy like they are doing the whole season and created lots of chances. Milan also create chances but the goal was scored after a horrible personal foul from Memphis Depay. Last week wonderkid Zakaria Bakkali was injured, the expectation is he will return in the squad tonight. He surely will add some class and surprises to the PSV attack. The first leg ended in 1-1. This means PSV needs a victory or a score draw (no 0-0) to go trough. This Milan squad surely still has a lot of quality but not that much in the times of Seedorf, Kaka, Ronaldo and Maldini when they won the Champions League. PSV is already impressing me the whole season, last week they proved they also can play against strong teams, I would not be surprised if PSV manage to get a draw or victory here.
Trading tip:
Lay AC Milan (1.33) or Back PSV Eindhoven (4.05) in the To Qualify market on Betfair. If PSV scores a goal this certainly will trade higher in play!
Date: 7/8/13 20:45 (UTC+1) Match: Zulte-Waregem - PSV Eindhoven Competition: UEFA Champions League Pick: PSV -1 AH Odds: 2.20 Bookmaker: Betfair Exchange Stake: 10/10
PSV were very impressive against Zulte last week. The game ended 2-0
but the score could have been a lot higher. Also the defence was very
impressive with the new central duo Rekik and Bruma. This weekend PSV
had a impressive performance in the first half in the away game against
ADO, first half ended 0-3. Second half PSV was sloppy and Bruma made a
horrible mistake.
Important for this game to know is that Zulte
is playing in their rivals Anderlechts stadium as their own stadium is
not good enough for CL. There are not many tickets sold so the game will
be played in an half-empty stadium, also half of the tickets sold is to
PSV-fans. So PSV is basically playing a game on neutral venue.
If PSV stay focused they will not have any problems with Zulte and
should win this easily and keep a clean sheet. Therefore, also because
Zulte has not the home advantage, I think it is surely not impossible for PSV to have a repeat from last week and win this easily with 2 goals difference. With the -1 line you also have the cover if PSV only wins with 1 goal difference.
I recommend placing this bet at the Asian Handicap market at Betfair.
Betfair is at the moment only charging 0.5% comission for this market and you will get most times a better price.
Date: 7/8/13 20:45 (UTC+1) Match: Zulte-Waregem - PSV Eindhoven Competition: UEFA Champions League Pick: BTTS NO Odds: 2.42 Bookmaker: Marathonbet Stake: 10/10
PSV were very impressive against Zulte last week. The game ended 2-0
but the score could have been a lot higher. Also the defence was very
impressive with the new central duo Rekik and Bruma. This weekend PSV
had a impressive performance in the first half in the away game against
ADO, first half ended 0-3. Second half PSV was sloppy and Bruma made a
horrible mistake.
Important for this game to know is that Zulte
is playing in their rivals Anderlechts stadium as their own stadium is
not good enough for CL. There are not many tickets sold so the game will
be played in an half-empty stadium, also half of the tickets sold is to
PSV-fans. So PSV is basically playing a game on neutral venue.
If PSV stay focused they will not have any problems with Zulte and
should win this easily and keep a clean sheet. Therefore, also because
Zulte has not the home advantage, the BTTS NO pick represents value.
Ajax had a
great season last year. They became champions after a very exciting season with
4 posssible contenders for the title.PSV, Feyenoord and Vitesse also have had some good papers at some stage
in the competition. In the first part of the competition Ajax seems a bit
unstable but the second part of the competition was very impressive.In the second part of the completion they
only lost away against Vitesse(3-2).But
after that loss Ajax kept winning, apart from some dodgy draws against smaller
opponents.In fact Ajax did this also
with very impressive football.
Last season
a few players stood out. Tobias Sana, began the competition with some
outstanding performances, but later on he was left out of the squad cause he
was run-down.Kenneth Vermeer became a
stable keeper and developed himself in to the first choice keeper of the Dutch
national team. Daley Blind finally showed his real skills as many doubted him.
His attacking abilities were never doubted but he was always very weak in
defence. He became stronger and worked on his lack of defensive skills. Daley
Blind rewarded himself with the Title of Ajax’s player of the year and also
became Oranjes first left-back. Christian Eriksen had an average season, but at
the end he reached his ability. Viktor Fischer finally made his breakthroughand scored some great goals and showed that
he is a great player. Siem de Jong was
very constant and was very important with his goals in absence of striker
Sigthorsson. Striker Danny Hoesen showed in the games that he played that he is
one to watch, he showed some great skills and also made some nice goals.
Transfers:
In:
Cause of
the hold off of transfers going out Ajax only get 2 real signings.Most striking name is surely Bojan Krkic.
Bojan was always one of Barcelona’s greatest talents and described by some as ‘the
new Messi’. Cause he not wanted to stay
in the shadow of Messi he decided a couple of years ago to move to Italy. He
first signed for AS Roma for 12 millon euro’s (Barcelona had a 13 million
buy-back clausule) in sight of coach Luis Enrique, also a Barcelonian. Luis
Enrique was fired by Roma and Bojan decided to join AC Milan in last season. He
only made 19 apearances in a disappointing season.Barcelona still decided to buy Bojan back
from Roma, but Bojan wanted more playing time. PSV and Feyenoord were also
interested, but the strong friendship Bojan have with Johan Cruyff and the
similar culture and style of play from Ajax made him decide to join Ajax. Ajax
surely has a player now with the potential to be worldclass. Because Bojan
already made his debut in 2006, you will almost forget that Bojan is still only
22 years old.
Other signing is Mike van der Hoorn, a central defender who came from FC
Utrecht.Last season he was one of the
strongholders from FC Utrecht, but was most striking cause some big mistakes he
made. Because of his strong season,
Netherlands U21 coach Cor Pot decided him to put him in the squad for the EURO
U21 Championship in Israel, which he won’t wanted to be reminded off. He got
some playing time in the game against Spain which Oranje lost with their B-team
and vd Hoorn was not impressive. In the semi-final against Italy he replaced
injured Stefan de Vrij but he made a big mistake in Italy’s goal.Van der Hoorn realized him this self also and
was in tears after the game.Van der
Hoorn is signed cause of Alderweireld might be leaving.
Out:
Ryan Babel,
has decided to cash in Turkey. He needed this cause he decided last year to buy
himself out of his contract with TSG Hoffenheim.Was last year mostly injured, but if he
played a welcome addition.
Miralem
Sulejmani: Ajax biggest signing ever (16 million) never paid back his transfer
fee. He shined some times but never was the player Ajax had seen at Heerenveen.
Last year he did not play anymore cause of injuries and de Boer thought he was
not good enough. Benfica still thinks he can be the player he once was, and a
great chance Benfica will be right. At Ajax he was used as a right winger. He
glanced at Heerenveen as an striker with a free role.
Isaac Cuenca;
Cuenca did not played much games due to injuries but showed that he is a good
player. He also said that Ajax is a great club and that he thinks about
returning in the future.
Rumours:
Captain
Siem de Jong was linked with several clubs, but decided last week that he will
stay at Ajax this season. Christian Eriksen, is linked with several clubs among
Liverpool, Barcelona and Bayer Leverkusen. Leverkusen was very concrete but
Eriksed refused them as he thinks Leverkuses ‘is not a bigger club than Ajax’.
Expectation is Eriksen only will leave if a top 10 European club will sign him.
Toby
Alderweireld wants to leave this season. Norwich City had a deal with Ajax, but
Alderweireld refused the offer as he thinks he can play for a bigger club.
Pre-season:
Ajax had a
great pre-season which they crowned with a victory in the Johan Cruyff Schaal
in extra time over cupwinners AZ Alkmaar.
Pre-season
Results:
Striking is
that Ajax played at the last stage of pre-season two games at the same day.
They devided the squad so all players could gain some match experience at the
same times and everyone is recovered at the same time.
Ajax had a
great performance against Werder Bremen which you can see the highlights in the
Youtube video below. Second half Ajax
played with a B-team.
Johan Cruyff Schaal (Dutch Super Cup)
In the first half Ajax was in control and very threatening with Bojan Krkic. HT score 0-0.In the second half Ajax was more sloppy and AZ scored 2 goals, after that Ajax made a comeback after a own goal and a shot from distance from Alderweireld. In extra time Siem de Jong scored the winner with a header.
Line-up:
Ajax will play in a 4-3-3 formation. The style of play can be compared to Barcelona's, althought Ajax shoots more from distance.
Most used
subs:
Hoesen for
Sigthorsson
Andersen
for Fischer/Krkic
Poulsen for
Schone
Current
Injuries:
Van Rhijn
(hamstring, 2-7 days), Boerrigter (ancle, 5-14 days)
Notes: Ajax
Reserve team will join the Jupiler league, the second level in Holland. Jong
Ajax can use players from the first team, unless they have made 15 appereances
or more in the first team.
Objective:
Ajax wants
to add the fourth title in a row. Also Ajax have spoken out the ambition to get
to 1/16 finals in the Champions League.
