Racing & Football Outlook December 6-12, 2011
After seemingly countless associations, negotiations and, ultimately,
rejections and nearly 16 months out of management my favourite
manager, Martin O’Neill, is back in the Premier League in charge of
Sunderland.
Over the years O’Neill has provided me with a small but profitable
angle, where I simply bet on the progress of his sides being greater
than the market supposes. Whether it’s Wycombe, Leicester, Celtic or
Aston Villa I have been well rewarded for my troubles.
Of course, Celtic excepted, I’ve never really been able to focus on
O’Neill’s chances across a very broad range of markets given that he
has yet to take the reins at a club with a genuine stab at the Premier
League title.
That means my activities have been restricted to spread betting point
totals and various ancillary markets, such as top-ten finish.
Now that he’s taken his seat in the Stadium of Light dugout, that’s
not going to change except that there may be an opportunity to oppose
Sunderland in the relegation or rock-bottom markets.
Before his return to management, O’Neill had reportedly rejected a few
approaches, such as when he seemed to be destined for the seat that
Avram Grant was occupying at Upton Park or, more recently, as the
semi-logical/fairytale replacement for Sven-Goran Eriksson’s latest
failed managerial effort at Leicester, where O’Neill came to real
prominence as a manager in the mid to late 1990s.
As he is now approaching 60 one wonders whether he’ll ever manage at
the highest level. It seems unlikely now that he’ll be called upon by
the any of the big four clubs, a great shame for a manager who has
never had anything less than a positive impact on the clubs under his
stewardship.
So what is he going to do for the Mackems? Well, in the short term it
seems likely that he’ll reverse the negative trend that has been set
in place at the club.
However, an assessment of how deep in the mire Sunderland are is
interesting from the perspective of the Outlook Index ratings.
While the numbers show that they are clearly going backwards,
Sunderland were not exactly in freefall before Steve Bruce’s
dismissal.
The closeness in strength of many of the teams in the Premier League
and the compact nature of the competition below the top six or seven
clubs means that small changes can have a large impact on league
position.
In Sunderland’s case, the Index suggests that the decline they’ve
suffered this season is not so great as to see them immediately
threatened by relegation. There are clubs below them with far worse
records and Index ratings and, for whom, relegation is a quite
definite possibility.
Even with Bruce at the helm I don’t believe that was necessarily the
case and, in some respects, with Bruce never having been accepted by a
section of Sunderland’s supporters, it may have been more the case
that the dip in form was a good chance to get him out the door.
So, now that he’s gone, what’s the extent of the task in front of O’Neill?
From my forecasts I currently have them projected to finish five
points clear of the relegation zone which, in such a close competition
and whatever some Sunderland supporters may think, does represent some
degree of success – my forecasts suggest there could be only ten
points between 18th place and mid-table.
The typical supporter might see that as failure but that is simply not
the case. There are small margins at play here, with perhaps three
wins and a draw over the course of 38 games separating a top-half
finish and relegation to the Championship.
If O’Neill is to succeed he doesn’t actually have to do very much, but
for us there is the more difficult task of making money from O’Neill’s
return to football. And at the moment the opportunities are few and
far between.
The top-ten finish price for Sunderland is ridiculously short at the
moment given that I make the price close to 8-1. Of course, my price
can’t factor O’Neill’s arrival into the equation but it still wouldn’t
mean my forecast would shorten that much.
I’ll be looking over the coming weeks for opportunities around
O’Neill’s arrival but like all good ‘systems’ there comes a time when
everyone else has spotted the same advantage and the opportunity
vanishes.
Instead we’re left with no choice but to play the opposite side to
where once we would have bet.
We’re not at the stage of simply opposing O’Neill because everyone
will be overplaying his importance but we should be on the look out
for alternatives given how the market could well become overly
positive to the effect of his arrival in relation to the actual
probabilities.
