Market indecision

I don't know about you, gentle reader, but the markets for the Manchester Untied v Fulham tie earlier this evening looked all 'wrong' to me before kick off. I don't recall seeing 26 for 0-0 in an English Premier League match before tonight - correct me if I'm wrong! The Match Odds market at kick off had the sort of numbers I'd expect to see if United were already 1-0 up!

The standout figure that shows, for me at any rate, that people really didn't have much of a clue how the game would pan out was the Any Unquoted scoreline. With a minute or so to kick off over £400,000 had been traded on the Correct Score market. As you would expect there was a lot on 0-0 (had to have a piece of that for a few minutes really) and a fair chunk on 2-0. But over £100,000 of that money had been matched on AU! It was at 3.76 if memory serves, and I sat there thinking 'that looks like value as a lay'. Having identified the value I then proceeded to leave it alone, as the 'pick a winner' side to my trading couldn't come to terms with the possibility of a very early United goal, as suggested by the 0-0 price, could leave me in trouble at a fair liability!

As it happened the layers were spot on and it seems that the 50k matched backing that score (and remember the backers, or most of them, also presumably saw value in that price) were a mile off  the mark.

In retrospect my reading of the market was right - it heavily overstated the case for a convincing home win. If only I could have  trusted myself to follow my instincts which were (and this isn't after timing, I promise) to lay over 2.5 from the start.

I'm not a lover of United as you know by now, and agree with Lambretta that they are a lay still in the Premiership Winner 2012 market as the season's final act begins. Faced by a Fulham side who were almost exclusively negative they looked nervous and unsure to me, and I think had Fulham been more resolute and the ref less of a bottler that an upset might have been on the cards. The Prem winner's market would seem to agree as United moving a clear three points ahead had a very slight impact on their odds. Interesting times ahead I think.