Premiership / Ralph Ellis / 26 October 2010 / Leave a comment Bet Now View Market

Ralph Ellis tells us why top-line results and stats need to be interpreted in the context of how they came about. If they're not, you as a punter can find yourself in the same sort of trouble as West Ham and Blackpool are...

There's the old gag about newspapers being black and white and read all over. Of course it only works when you say red instead of read. And come to think of it, in these days of colour printing it doesn't work at all. But there is one thing that still tends to be black and white, and that's the way football results are interpreted.

And it's not just newspapers, I might add, that will reduce the game to an Animal Farm type slogan of "three points good, one or no points bad". The phone-in pundits allow even less shades of grey.

Taking that simplistic philosophy it's easy to see this morning that Manchester City are not genuine title contenders after all; that Arsenal's tippy tappy football is good enough to beat the biggest and best; that Javier Hernandez is the complete goal-scoring answer for Manchester United; and that Fernando Torres has rediscovered his top form.

When it comes to betting, however, following those sort of snap judgements is the quickest way to lose a lot of money. You get the worst odds because everybody else is thinking that way - and all too often it turns out they are all wrong.

So with Wayne Rooney sunning himself in Dubai and using some of the loose change from his new £200,000-a-week contract to buy Coleen a cool glass of bubbly, did United's 2-1 win at Stoke really justify their title odds shortening from [7.5] to [6.0]? Probably not. Sir Alex Ferguson's squad still looked short of numbers with Patrice Evra forced to play in midfield and Gary Neville, who should have been sent off, showing his age at right back.

Meanwhile at Eastlands it's hard to give a proper verdict on Arsenal's 3-0 win with City reduced to ten men after only four minutes because Dedryck Boyata did get red carded. The same people who felt defeat at Chelsea proved the Gunners could be physically bullied are now saying they've shown their little players can go up against the big men. The reality is that much of their season will depend on keeping Cesc Fabregas fit and on whether Marouane Chamakh keeps improving. If he does then [2.52] a top two finish looks quite tempting.

As for Torres, the 53rd minute finish from close range which secured a 2-1 win over Blackburn was only his second of the season, and he's still anywhere between [5.3] and [15.0] to be in the Premier League's top four scorers, never mind the leader. It's a sign of Liverpool's ongoing troubles that scraping an Anfield win over a very limited Blackburn side is a cause for cheering. I think it more suggests that Blackburn, on the same points as Roy Hodgson's team, are great value to back for relegation at [9.2].

Betfair's market make the current top four very short odds on to retain those places until the end of the campaign. Tottenham are [4.1] to repeat last year's top four finish but that price should be even longer. That's less of a reaction to their 1-1 draw at home to Everton, and more because they've dropped points after Champions League weeks too often this season.

West Brom are the side getting most plaudits after a 2-1 home win to Fulham extended their unbeaten sequence at The Hawthorns which now goes back to February. That's made them as short as [3.0] to finish in the top half. But like United they had some help from a couple of questionable refereeing decisions, and the squad isn't deep enough to sustain the run over a long season.

One club that will stay in trouble is West Ham, now bottom after throwing away a lead to lose 2-1 at home to Newcastle. They are [2.24] to go down, but prepare for that to go odds-on if they get spanked at Arsenal next week.

Wigan's 1-1 draw with Bolton means they have gone four games unbeaten. I lost money backing them to be relegated last year, and certainly wouldn't take the [2.36] for them to go down this time. I do fear for Blackpool, however, after a 2-0 defeat at Birmingham, who are sharpening their claws for this week's derby at Aston Villa. Alex McLeish's side are [5.0] to win there, and that's value because Villa seem to have let their standards slip since Martin O'Neill went. A 1-0 defeat at Sunderland leaves them with a single point from the last three games and only one win in six.

Villa under O'Neill were the last team to score at Stamford Bridge, even if it was a consolation in a 7-1 rout. That means Chelsea's routine 2-0 win over Wolves stretched their home record to 785 minutes without conceding a goal, eclipsing the 675 minute best set under the miserly Jose Mourinho. The Blues are [1.66] to retain their title, and with a five point lead and that sort of record they are full value to back at that price. And that's definitely not a snap judgement.