Champions League...

Betfair have a good Champions League offer tonight:

Only new customers I suspect so I can't take advantage!:

Chelsea, Arsenal and Barcelona all to win at 18/1

Or you can take the teams individually:

Arsenal 4/1

Chelsea 8/1

Barcelona 4/1

Oh England...

So it was not to be against Wales. You could feel the tide turning in the game with plenty of time left. Pity I didn't break my golden rule about not betting in games where I have an emotional interest - would've cleaned up!

Once again, this young England side that promised much at the start of Lancaster's reign, haven't really delivered. They only ever seem to be able to play 60 minutes of rugby against decent opposition and I now fear for us against Australia.

Many are critical of the decision not to kick that last penalty but maybe the angle would have beaten Farrell - maybe not. He was kicking well.

We just looked naive in the lead up to the Welsh try and there wasn't much in the way of on-field leadership as Wales began to get on top.

Bring back Manu Tuilagi? The man is a match-winner...just the 'small' matter of the assault charge.


Lucky to ever play for England again?

It's Official...

...Same ol', same ol'...

Well it's official then - Manchester City aren't in fact playing any better in the Premiership than they were last season...it's just that everyone else is crap! It looks like the Champions League will just be another embarrassing outing for them - I mean Juventus have started worse than Chelsea :(

Galacticos...

Louis Van Gaal with his giant Filofax..

Manchester Utd. fans must be lamenting the departure of Sir Alex Fergusson and David Gill more than ever.. the 'model' that brought them so much success in years gone by, seems to have been replaced with a 'buy first, work it out later' approach. It's almost as if they have adopted the Galacticos handbook to buying players, yet worryingly without the guarantee that the players are even world class...

Close to £250m has been spent since Van Gaal took over at the start of 2014 and with that sort of spend, many owners would be expecting success this season. Amazingly Van Gaal, presumably with the board's backing, has stated that the team are still very much a 'work in progress' and that he would like to win the title before his contract is up in 2017; that gives him another two seasons including this one. It's just as well because it looks as if the team have a long way to go...

Some of LVG's thinking might be questionable. He has been quoted as saying:

"I have not bought Martial for me, I have bought him for the next manager of Manchester United"

Er, well that's very good of you Louis, but why? You could always have spent the £36m (possibly rising to £58m) on a brilliant proven talent, to help you during your tenure. Maybe it was the Glazer's idea.

I like Van Gaal as a manager, he's a great character, another one of those 'mad genius' types like Mourinho. They are friends. He is one of those managers that you don't fire easily, but I wonder if United will have to do just that if they want to win anything meaningful before 2017.

First Day Back...

So, first day back. Not a great day but not a disaster either. Forget about the results, what I am trying to highlight here is the importance of discipline. It might help some of you. I know when I first started betting / trading, many years ago, I occasionally 'chased my bets' and it is ill-advised!

I run through my end of day results in this video:




Thanks.