Over/Under 2.

5 Goals System

Introduction
Hi and welcome to Goals Market Professional; a system and training manual that will take you through the
goal betting market and hopefully give you the tools to be able to determine how many goals there will be in
a match. Something which you can then turn into £££'s on the betting markets!

Goals are the only true constant in a football match. Throughout a season teams will win, lose and draw
whereas goals will just keep flooding in. You may have been disappointed when your 1/7 favourite was
beaten out 2-1 in a game they were leading from the opening minutes but I was quietly pleased because my
Over 2.5 goal bet had just come in again.

This is the best part of betting on the goal market. No longer do you have to pit two teams against each other
instead when you bet on the goal market the two teams are working together to provide you with betting
profits!

I prefer to bet on the Over in the goals markets, normally the 2.5 goal market. This means that I like to bet
that there will be Over 2.5 goals in a certain match. If there are then 3 or more goals I win, if there are 0, 1 or
2 goals I will lose. Conversely if I were to back Under 2.5 goals then 0, 1 or 2 goals would result in profit
while 3+ would result in a loss.

There are a number of different goal markets you can bet on and after you have read and absorbed this
information you should be able to have a go at all of them. The most popular ones are Over 0.5, Over 1.5
and so on up to usually Over 4.5 but with some bookmakers you can get up to Over 7.5. There are also 1st
half goals and individual team goals that you can be betting. We prefer the 2.5 goals market because the
odds are usually pretty decent while still having a pretty good strike rate, with 1.5 goals or less the strike rate
required is much greater because of the odds and with 3.5 goals the odds are often not enough to cover the
strike rate needed. 2.5 goals is the optimum level for odds and strike rate which makes it a perfect market for
betting.

There is also another direction you can go in and that is spread betting. With spread betting you are paid
your stake multiplied by per goal it is over the spread. E.g. you have backed there will be Over 2.45 goals in
Match X, in the end the match finishes 4-2, instead of just winning your stake x the odds, you will win the
total goal make-up (6) take away the spread (2.45) multiplied by your stake. So in the first example you
would have made £10 if you backed £10 and the odds were 2.00. In the second case you would have made
£35.50. Basically what I am trying to say is you can make a nice bit of money through spread betting if you
think there are going to be even more than 2.5 goals in a game. With spread betting you are awarded by how
correct you are not just if you were correct, this is helpful with goals betting because we are no longer
limited to restricting ourselves to 1 particular market (Over 2.5, Over 3.5, Over 4.5 etc) instead we can back
the Total Goal Spread and smile as every extra goal means extra money.

**Warning** Spread betting comes with additional risks to traditional odds betting and it is possible to lose
more than you stake. You win more the more correct you are but you also lose more the more wrong you
are.

I said that I prefer backing Over when dealing with goals. This is mainly due to the fact that I think it is
much easier to determine teams who are likely to score than it is to determine teams who are unlikely to
score. Especially as there are a huge number of 'freak' goals that occur in football. Goals can come from
Penalties, Incorrect Offside Decisions, Goalkeeping Errors, Own Goals and the occasional Beach Ball! All
of these things cannot be accounted for beforehand so if you were betting Over these things would all be
working for you whereas if you were betting Under you would need to add in an extra risk variable to
account for unforeseen goals.

Also when dealing with Over in the goals market you are able to better identify players who are going to
score goals, it's quite difficult to isolate players who will not score goals, or stop goals being scored.
Obviously the goal keeper and defence has a lot to do with this but judging whether they will be beaten is a
much easier task than judging whether they will come through!

This guide therefore is designed to help you in 2 main ways. Firstly we have the beginner's system. This
system gives you step by step instructions to follow which, if you follow correctly, will ensure that you
profit from the 2.5 goals market. Then we have the Advanced Training section. This section will dissect the
goals market, goal scorers, teams, different match types, the odds, individual players and strike partnerships
and will provide you with the betting knowledge so that you can be able to look at a particular game and be
able to say with conviction.

"There will be at least X amount of goals in this game".

I have had people tell me after they read this manual that they were seeing win rates of over 80% which
when the odds for the 2.5 goal market is typically between 1.6 and 2.4 then you can see just how profitable a
good understanding of the goals market can be.

So start off by reading the Beginner's system which outlines a basic system that I have used for years that
has given me a pretty decent 60% strike rate with the average odds being around 1.9. Then once you have
gotten used to doing that read the advanced system that will teach you as opposed to just telling you what to
do. You will learn how to analyse games based on a number of key concepts and ultimately you should be
able to read exactly how a game is going to play out to an incredible degree of accuracy!

Over/Under 2.5 Goals System: Beginner's System

by Tony Robinson

Foreword If there is one thing I know, it's making good money as a punter. I've been in this tax free business
for some years now and I've only ever restricted myself to betting on two different sports, namely Horse
Racing and Football. The reason I've done this is simple. If you restrict yourself to a small area of an entire
genre, in this case being sport, it is far easier to learn the games more in depth. Horse Racing and Football
are possibly two of the broadest sports you'll find, but what I have done is taken it a step further in the
football sense. I haven't studied a specific team. I haven't studied any specific leagues, but what I have done
is do my best to work out how many goals are going to be scored in any particular game depending on
which teams are playing!

This system has served me for quite a few years now and I continue to implement it. I have never really
shown it to anyone before except the odd family member and friend but none of them ever took the time to
test it carefully and reap the potential awards that it could bring to anyone.

Notes about Overs and Unders

Over 2.5 and Under 2.5 goals betting is not an exact applied science. By this I mean if you go and do the
proper research and it seems like a 100% sure bet, there is no saying it will win! What I intend to do is show
you how to select the most exact possible winning bets to bet on and give you my advantage of making a
consistent profit virtually close to all year round using this system that I devised quite some time ago.

One of the greatest things about betting on Under or Over 2.5 goals, is the fact that we almost always get
decent odds. The odds are generally between 1.60 and 2.20 and what I intend to do, is help you find far more
winning bets than losers.
One thing I will make clear. This is not a long drawn out manual. I am not a writer and I don't intend to fill it
up with excess garbage to ‘pad' this book. I will give it to you straight and you can use it! My system teaches
you how to pick both under 2.5 and over 2.5 goals in any given game. To be honest I prefer to play on over
2.5 goals because you can always hope for a goal rather than have your bet lose 30 minutes in after 3 are
scored!

How to Back 2.5 Goals

In order to use this system you will need a Bet365 account. This is because you will need to be betting on
markets that only Bet365 offers and when other firms offer the same market Bet365 almost always offer
better odds.

Luckily there is a way that you can grab £100 match bonus just by signing up. However you must use the
link below if you want to claim these free bets:

Click here to Claim your £100 Match Bonus

Selecting Over 2.5 Goals

There are many crucial factors that go into selecting under or over 2.5 goals. Take a team like Chelsea as an
example. At home, they are generally defensively sound. Over the past 3 or 4 years, they have won most of
their home games, and if you look at the score lines, more often than not they end 1-0 or 2-0 (with a growing
number of 6-0s). We basically need to match teams that score and concede quite a few goals... or teams with
awful defensive records and more obviously, teams who score 3 or 4 a game.

I am going to show you how I make uses of various statistics and results to select these. I use
http://www.soccerway.com as the site and I've only come across this recently. It makes life far easier
because the results are right at your fingertips. For those who are unaware, OVER 2.5 GOAL betting
involves betting on games to have 3 or more goals in total.

The System and the Odds

The first rule of this system is that we are betting on odds from 1.60 to 2.20. You may not bet on anything
below 1.60 and you may not exceed 2.20. The system will work and profit with virtually all of the major
leagues. The English Premiership and Championship, Italian Serie A, Spanish Primera, German Bundesliga,
French Ligue 1, Dutch Eredivisie, Scottish Premiership. It will work on other leagues, but I recommend
sticking to the above ones. They are the most widely covered and they are generally more consistent.

I don't play outside of those leagues, but I have tried the system on a few others such as the Japanese J-
League, MLS, the Brazilian league and the system still functions properly. After the rule regarding the odds
being between 1.60 and 2.20, there is another crucial one that you need to stick to. You may NOT use a
specific team more than two times in a row.

Let us say that we are betting on Manchester City to be over 2.5 goals in a game on October 5th... and it
ends over 2.5. We then bet on them to be over 2.5 goals for the following game on October 12th... if that too
is successful, you may not bet on them for the 3rd in a row. It is just to play against the laws of averages and
in my experience I have had success applying this. Eventually, even if it goes against statistics, it WILL end
under 2.5 at some stage, even if stats say there should be goals.

Selection Process: I will describe my selection process in a brief summary and then I will elaborate on every
aspect.
Let us say we are using ‘Manchester City vs. Tottenham'.

1. We need to look at the previous 3 home game scores of the home side – Goal totals need to be
calculated specifically.
2. We need to look at the previous 3 away game scores of the away side – Goal totals need to be
calculated specifically.
3. The betting odds need to be between 1.60 and 2.20 for the over 2.5 goals market. There are one or
two ‘finer' rules that I will explain at the end. Let us put this example into action. See below:

Go to http://www.soccerway.com . On the left hand side, you will see most of the main countries and when
you click on there, the leagues will be listed. Otherwise at the top you can click on the National Leagues tab
and you will see a drop down box of virtually every nation in the world. This site houses statistics for
everything and it really is excellent.

Click on PREMIERSHIP on the left hand side.

Now, I am going to use an example of one of the selections that we had for last weekend, which was
Manchester City vs. Tottenham Hotspurs. The game was an over 2.5 Goal selection and the game ended 1-2.
It could have been an even higher scoring game if it wasn't for the red card in the first half which tightened
up the game a bit. Now, we are dealing with Man City and Spurs.

As you can see, you are given a few overall records as well as Head 2 Head and the finally the previous 7 or
8 games. Look at the bottom two tabs what you need to do, is click the 'Home' and 'Away' for the respective
teams. Seeing Manchester City are the home side, click ‘Home' for them and seeing Tottenham Hotspurs are
the ‘Away' side, just click away. You will then be shown the previous home/away results:

You will now see home and away records for both. Seeing that we are now focusing on a PREMIER
LEAGUE match, we are only looking at LEAGUE games for the previous league records. What we need to
do, is look at the last 3 City Results at home and the last 3 Spurs Results away from home.

They must be league games:

Manchester City: Man City 3-0 Stoke (3 goals in total) Man City 2-3 Liverpool (5 goals in total) Man City
6-0 Portsmouth (6 goals in total) Tottenham: Arsenal 4-4 Spurs (8 goals in total) Stoke 2-1 Spurs (3 goals in
total) Portsmouth 2-0 Spurs (2 goals in total).

For the HOME TEAM what we need is the following:

• The home team MUST have had 7 goals or MORE in their last 3 home games.
• 2 or all 3 of the 3 previous games must have ended over 2.5

For the AWAY TEAM what we need is the following:

• The away team MUST have had 7 goals or MORE in their last 3 away games.
• The PREVIOUS game... must have had 2 or more goals in total for the entire game.
• The away team MUST have scored in 2 or 3 of the last 3 games.
• 2 or 3 of the 3 previous games must have ended over 2.5.

The above rules are key to the system and need be followed to the letter.

Now let us see how these apply:

For the HOME TEAM what we need is the following:

• The home team MUST have had 7 goals or MORE in their last 3 home games.
 • 2 or all 3 of the 3 previous games must have ended over 2.5

Manchester City: Man City 3-0 Stoke (3 goals in total) Man City 2-3 Liverpool (5 goals in total) Man City
6-0 Portsmouth (6 goals in total).

Rule 1 Was... there must be 7 or more goals in the previous 3 home games. As you can see, the results have
been 3-0, 2-3, 6-0, meaning that there is a total of 14... which is quite a lot by any teams standards. Rule 2
Was 2 or all 3 of the 3 games must have ended over 2.5 goals. As you can see, all of them have 3 or more, so
all of them apply even though we only needed 2 of them to have been over 2.5.

So far, this is a qualifying bet.

NOW... we need to look at the AWAY side.

For the AWAY TEAM what we need is the following:

• The away team MUST have had 7 goals or MORE in their last 3 away games.
• The PREVIOUS game... must have had 2 or more goals in total for the entire game.
• The away team MUST have scored in 2 or 3 of the last 3 games.
• 2 or 3 of the 3 previous games must have ended over 2.5.

Tottenham: Arsenal 4-4 Spurs (8 goals in total) Stoke 2-1 Spurs (3 goals in total) Portsmouth 2-0 Spurs (2
goals in total).

Rule 1 Was... the away side must have had 3 or more goals in their last 3 away games. As you can see, there
were 13 in total, which again is quite large. So this is a qualifier so far.

Rule 2 Was... The previous game must have 2 or more goals in total. As you can see, their previous away
game had 8 goals in it so that qualifies.

Rule 3 Was... The away team must have scored in at least 2 of the last 3 games. As you can see, they did
manage that. The last game they scored 4 and before that 1, so they have scored in or more of the last 3.

Rule 4 Was.. 2 or 3 of the last 3 must have ended over 2.5. As you can see, 2 of them DID end over 2.5
meaning that this is a qualifying bet.

Final Rule If you bet on a team to be over 2.5 goals and it succeeds twice (meaning that you bet on them in
two consecutive games), you MUST skip that team for a game. After that you continue betting on them.

I have always done this and it has worked far better than expected. You will always get what they call the
‘law of averages' and adding in this rule does seem to help our causes against it. Let us say that you bet on a
Manchester City game to be over 2.5 goals and their following game, we make the same bet. IF both bets are
winning bets, we must then skip Manchester City for one game even if they qualify a third time round.

Example: Bet- Man City match Over 2.5 goals – Bet WON Bet – Man City match Over 2.5 goals – Bet
WON - We must now leave them alone for the next game. Many will question this rule, but if you have a
look at previous form and work out how often this would have turned a possible winner into a loser, the
results are astounding.

Final Word on OVER 2.5

I am a big believer on betting on over 2.5 goals in a game. I am actually against under 2.5, however I will
give you my method that I occasionally use. If you do take my recommendation, I would say stick to over
2.5 goal betting. The amount of times that I have bet on under 2.5 and one or two late or injury time goals
ruin that bet completely put me off it. The more you bet on games with Overs, the more easily you will be
able to identify games like that almost as a 6th sense. It is exactly like I said earlier in the book... It is better
to be praying for a 3rd goal in a game, rather than to have your bet lose after 30 odd minutes!

Under 2.5 Goals Betting Method

As I mentioned, I do not like betting on under 2.5 goals, but I will share the method anyway. I also find that
this method works 100% better on ITALIAN and FRENCH league football. Avoid Dutch and German
league football. These are generally higher scoring. Under 2.5 Goal betting is simple. Basically what we
want are score lines of : 0-0 0-1 1-0 1-1 2-0 0-2 Any of those and we would win our bet. So, onto the
method itself. It is not as complex as the Over 2.5, but still generally effective. What we need to do, is have
a look at the home side as well as the away sides' last two games. Have a look below:

Selection Method: HOME team rules

• Previous three home games must have ended under 2.5 goals in at least 2 of the 3.
• One or more of the score lines must contain 0 goals for the home or away side. (In any of the 3
games).

AWAY TEAM

• Last three away games must be UNDER 2.5 goals in at least 2 or 3 of the 3.
• The AWAY side must not have scored in at least 1 of the last 3 away games.

PREVIOUS MEETINGS: The previous meeting of this game in the previous season (this exact fixture we
are focusing on), must be under 2.5. In other words it must have ended 0-0, 1-0, 0-1, 1-1, 2-0 or 0-2. As you
can see, the method is definitely easier to implement and it is effective.

Our Example: French Ligue 1: PSG v Lille Have a look at home and away records currently (remember
league only): PSG at home in the last 3 games in the league:

Rule 1: 0-1 3-2 0-1 We require 2 or 3 of the games to have ended under 2.5. As you can see, 2 of the 3 did
end under 2.5 goals.

Rule 2: Requires that 1 or more of the scores must have a 0 somewhere. As you can see, in their last game
they failed to score (0-1) and in the 3rd last game, they failed to score again in another (0-1).

Lille (away from home).

As you can see:

Rule 1: 0-0 2-2 0-2 Again, 2 of the 3 have ended under 2.5 goals.

Rule 2: The away side must not have scored in at least 1 of the last 3 games. As you can see, that this applies
to us yet again and in their previous game, they did not score in another scoreless draw.

THE FINAL RULE: Is to check previous results between these sides. We need to check the last fixture only.
If you have a look at their previous meetings, which you can find by comparing the two sides on the
SoccerWay web site exactly the same way you were shown earlier:

The last result between these two (When PSG were at home), ended 1-1, which is an under 2.5 goal game.
Remember, the fixture must be the corresponding on to the previous season. If they didn't face each other for
some reason such as relegation, then completely ignore this rule! This is just an extra added check which
does help.
Staking
If you wish to use flat stakes only, do the following: It is recommend you start with a minimum bank of £50.
If this is the case, I recommend £4 stakes only. If you have a bank of £100, then your stakes should be £8
which is 8% of the bank at all time. The aim is to always stake 8% no matter what the bank is. If you want to
be safe, stick to 5%. It is far safer but obviously, profits will be lower. If you need to calculate 8% each time,
the calculation is simple:

Divide your entire bank by 100 and then multiply it by 8 so if your bank is 342:

342 / 100 * 8 = £27.36.

Final Word
I'll say it again – stick to betting on OVER 2.5 goals in a game. Under 2.5 goals is far trickier to select and
the result are just never as good. The method outlined in this manual are the ones that I have been putting to
use for years.

The over 2.5 goal method, to be fair, has quite a few rules and at the beginning it may take you longer than
usual to select your bets, but after a week or two of practice, you will be able to select these games
instinctively just by looking at the previous results.

I've been using these methods and have made money. I used to sell this football system but am now
distributing it for free for the benefit of all. However, this being free information I cannot warrant that this
system will work for you or whether it will work for that matter. For one you need to be disciplined and
stick to the system.

Advanced Training
Right,

So welcome to the Advanced Training section of the Goal Markets Betting System. Within these pages we
are going to be dissecting the key components that determine how many goals will be scored in a given
match. Armed with this information you will be able to dominate the various goal markets that we discussed
in the Introduction Manual.

The information in this part of the course is designed to be Educational rather than instructional. The
Advanced Training we aim to give you should be used so that when you are researching matches you can
quickly identify the likely number of goals a game will have and then bet accordingly, making profits as you
go. If you are looking for a system with rigid rules to follow then I recommend you following the Beginner's
System until you are comfortable with the ideas outlined in this Advanced Training to move out from the
rigidity of using systems and start using your own intuition (backed up with solid research) to master the
total goals market.

Basically the point of this part of the course is to improve your intuition into games. Your intuition is
effectively the gut feeling you have about how a match will go. When you look at a game and you kind of
just feel that there will be lots of goals this is your intuition at work. Intuition is effectively the subconscious
weighing up the facts at its disposal to give you a gut feeling about the result. The more RELEVANT
information you have the better your intuition will be.

In this part of the course we will be looking at all of the RELEVANT information that determines the
amount of goals in a game, so that when you take a look at a game your subconscious will be weighing up
all of the relevant facts to make a better assessment of how it will go and your 'intuition' will start yielding
much higher returns for you.
Line Up
The line up of the two sides will have the most impact on how many goals will be scored in a game. This
much should be obvious as they will be the ones who are scoring the goals. So what we need to be doing is
researching the likely line up and then making our decisions based on this.

To do this I like to check out the major fan forums the day before and see what the popular opinion is. After
all fans who are members of forums about their teams are going to be very knowledgeable about their side. I
use this to my advantage. I check out what the general opinion is of the lineup and then use this to judge
how many goals there will be.

The major forums for the Premiership teams are as follows:

Arsenal - http://arsenal-mania.com/forum/
Aston Villa - http://www.villatalk.com/
Birmingham - www.bcfcforum.co.uk/
Blackburn Rovers - http://boards.rovers.co.uk/
Bolton Wanderers - http://www.the-wanderer.co.uk
Chelsea - http://forums.cfcnet.co.uk/
Everton - http://www.bluekipper.net/
Fulham - cc.fulhamfc.com/forum
Liverpool - http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php
Manchester City - http://www.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk/forum/index.php
Manchester United - http://www.redcafe.net/
Newcastle United - http://www.toontastic.net/board/
Stoke City - http://www.delilahsforum.co.uk/forum/forum.php/
Sunderland - http://www.safc-fans.com/forum/
Tottenham Hotspur - http://www.thfctalk.com/forum/
West Brom - http://www.westbrom.com/forum/index.php
West Ham - http://www.kumb.com/forum/index.php
Wigan - http://boards.footymad.net/forum.php
Wolves - http://www.the-wolf.co.uk/

These are the ones that I use, some of them will require you to sign up to read the posts but I recommend
you do this as the information gained can sometimes be vital. If you are betting on other League football or
on foreign sides then simply type into google "Team Name Forums" or "Team Name Fan Forums" to find a
list of online discussion boards talking about that particular team. A great resource I use for this as well is
the betfair forums. This can be found on the betfair site!

The reason we go through all of this effort instead of just relying on the lineups when they are announced is
that we want the information to come a long time before kick off so we have ample opportunity to make our
decision.

Also often times these forums will be able to tell you some great inside scoops about key players being
injured or some other juicy information. For example I once read in a forum how a guy had seen his local
super striker in a local bar until the early hours the night before a match. Now obviously this could have
been pure fiction but sure enough the next day the same player was ruled out having 'picked up a stomach
bug in the night'.

So try to get RELIABLE information as quickly as possible. When it comes to internet message boards the
reliability will always be in question but if a large number of people all agree on a particular lineup then you
should work off the assumption it is correct.
Now that you know the expected lineup you can start to dissect how many goals each side should be scoring.
You need to be looking at the team as a whole as each player plays a part in how many goals are scored in a
game.

The obvious things you will be taking into consideration are the presence/absence of big name strikers,
unbeatable defenders and super keepers.

Less obvious things you will want to take into account are the history of the defensive lineup. How many
times has this particular defensive foursome played together. If they are a relatively new backline then there
is an increased chance of them being broken down as they are not yet used to how each of them play. Next
time you watch Chelsea play watch how John Terry goes for a header and his position is instantly covered
by one of his team mates. This is because they have all played together a lot and know exactly where
everyone else is at all times. New partnerships do not have this history and are often unsure of where their
fellow defenders are and often lose cover.

Midfielders are often overlooked when it comes to Goal Market betting but their influence on the number of
goals is massive. Midfield players account for the majority of assists in Premiership football so a particularly
good midfield player being left out of the side for whatever reason will have an effect on the number of
goals are likely to be scored. Some good examples of this can be seen in Man Utd. When Paul Scholes and
Ryan Giggs are playing you will more often than not find that they will assist a goal in the game. This is
because they are fantastic play makers and split defenders wide open, so while they do not score all of the
time a lot of goals are scored because of their penetrating play.

I have already mentioned defensive lineups but perhaps even more important are strike partners. Teams with
two main strikers will often have a solid partnership formed whereby both players play off each other and
therefore are more likely to score when they are featured together. The majority of the time one of the
strikers will have considerably more goals than the other. If the other striker does not feature one would
assume that the other striker will still score just as frequently, but if he was scoring because of his
partnership then his goals will dry up.

So to sum up the lineup you are looking at major inclusions/exclusions that will have an effect on the
attacking/defending capability of each side. Big strikers and safe handed keepers are obvious examples of
what to look for while play making midfielders and regular defenders are others. Also an important point is
team chemistry as a whole. A team that plays together often will often gel together better and will be more
likely to score.

Team Mentality
The next factor in determining the number of goals scored in a match that we will be looing at is team
mentality. There are two forms of mentality that we will need to factor into our betting, that is the mentality
that is produced from recent form and the mentality that is instilled into the team by the fans, the manager
and history.

Recent form will play a huge role in how many goals a team will score in a given game. A team that has
won 8 of their last 10 games and in those games have scored a total of 30 odd goals (3 a game) will likely
continue in this fashion and score a nice amount of goals again. This is because this team is said to be flying
and will be riding high on confidence which will spillover to the pitch and will strike fear into their
opposition.

Conversely a team who has been losing consistently week in week out will be unlikely to run rampant in
their next match because they will be lacking confidence.

When you are looking at teams the combined mentality of the teams caused by form is important. Two
teams that are flying high and scoring lots of goals are likely to have a very open game with lots of goals
going in. Whereas two teams who are flying but only with 1-0 and 2-0 victories every time are likely to have
a very cagey and highly defensive encounter.

Then of course a team who is flying high scoring lots of goals playing against a team coming off the back of
a string of upsetting defeats is likely to knock quite a few in past them but the poor performing side are
unlikely to reply. These examples are not taking into account the actual abilities of the two teams just their
form, obviously a Big 4 team in a slump is still likely to beat a newly promoted side on a good run but these
are just things to think about.

So the second mentality we need to look at is that which is instilled into the team. A classic example of what
I am referring to is the Mourinho effect. Whenever Mourinho joins a team they start winning. However if
you take a look at the results Mourinho got especially in his reign at Chelsea and Inter is that a large amount
of his games were 1-0. This is what I mean by the mentality instilled into the team. Obviously Mourinho is
happy with 1-0 victories and once his team goes 1-0 he urges them to camp out and defend effectively
killing off the game. Teams like this are not likely to score many goals. The Mourinho effect has declined
since he joined Real Madrid as they have been scoring a lot of goals in matches. I suppose not even Jose can
tell Ronaldo and Higuain to stop scoring goals and defend!

Chelsea post-Mourinho however have proven to be rather different, especially towards the end of the
2009/10 and beginning of the 2010/11 season where they hit a number of 6+ against teams. This is
obviously therefore a change in the mentality of the team whereby just winning is no longer enough, they
must win in style. Arsenal are a similar example of this, they will win in style and scoring goals
accomplishes this.

Man Utd on the other hand when they go a few goals to the good will bring off their big talent in order to
rest them and bring out their young talent instead. This type of play means that when we judge the lineup for
teams like Man Utd we will need to judge the subsititutes as well and see how likely they are to score in the
particular game.

Pretty much when you are looking at the mentality of the teams think about how their recent results will
affect their goal scoring ability and think about how many goals the team will even try to score before they
sit back and are content with the score as it is. There is nothing worse than backing Over 2.5 goals and a
team scores 2 in the first half but then play 45 minutes of keep ball in the second leaving your bet in the
wind.

Game Type
There are a huge number of different game types and the type of game will directly affect how many goals
there are in a specific game. You will have already seen all of these types of games but will not have thought
about how they would affect the number of goals. Here is a rundown of the types of games that often arise
and how they normally affect the number of goals.

Top vs Bottom
Obviously this type of game concerns those teams who are near the top of the table playing against a team
who is fairly low down the table. Chelsea vs West Ham would be a good example of this. When you are
looking at these types of games it is relatively obvious that the 'Top' team has the advantage over the
'bottom' side.

What you should be looking at in these games is how many goals the top team are going to score against the
bottom team. Obviously the bottom team has a chance of winning the match but in the long run the top team
will win a lot more games than the bottom team in this circumstance.
So in this circumstance we need to look at how many goals the top team can score against the bottom team.
What has the top team done against similar teams already this season?

In your mind you need to think; will the top team hit in 3 or more goals against this lesser opposition or even
though they will get beaten will the bottom team manage to scrape a goal themselves?

Some bottom teams are great at low scoring matches when at home while some top teams will just get to a
comfortable 2-0 lead and will just play pass ball from there. These are some of the things you will need to
consider in this type of matchup.

Derby Matches
One of the most exciting matches you can watch is a Derby. There are loads of derbies. Even in the
Premiership alone there is a huge host of derbies. There are several London derbies, the Merseyside derby,
the Tyneside derby, the Midlands derby, there are loads of them.

And the thing they usually have in common is there are no rules. There is no form when it comes into a
derby, everything that has happened before this game means nothing. Everton could be bottom of the
Championship having lost 30 straight games and come derby day they could thrash Liverpool 3-0. It's the
derby day mentality.

With this though you can sometimes predict if it is going to be a high scoring derby or a low scoring derby
based on the past fixtures in the derbies and the recent form of both sides. If both teams are used to having
3-3 battles with each other and they are both coming into the derby having each scored 10 goals in their past
4 games you can expect another goal fest to be coming. If conversely both teams are struggling for goals you
can expect an immense battle of a game whereby 1 goal nicks it.

As I said derbies are a tough one to predict so I often try to stay away from them if possible but as there are
so many of them around its pretty hard to avoid them all the time.

My advice is to look at the team and how many goals are in them, look at the past couple of games but most
importantly look at past derbies to see how the derby affects the players in that particular team. Some teams
like Arsenal sometimes play exactly the same as they always do during a derby but then teams like Man Utd
recently have stopped playing their usual level of quality football and when at City play like it was Sunday
League.

Top 4 Encounters
The big games, these days it would be better to probably change this to the Top 6 with Man City and
Tottenham joining in the fun, or maybe the Top 5 if Liverpool don't get their act together! These are the
games that make supporting football enjoyable, and they are a Over 2.5 Goal backer's dream due to the odds
and the number of 2-1 victories in games like this is very surprising. Because both teams are quality you
would expect that they wouldn't be able to break each other down but that isn't the case.

Obviously there are only rare occasions were games like this break the 5 goal barrier but breaking the 3 goal
barrier comes often. When looking at these games you want to be looking at both sides attacking nature. If
both sides are playing with their best strikers on the pitch and these strikers are proven goal scorers then it
doesn't matter to them who they are playing they will score goals.

These games however are rarely run aways so you do need to look at both sides teamsheets as opposed to
the topvsbottom encounter were you just look at the top team. Look at the past results for both of these
teams against similar opposition paying particular attention to how many goals they conceded, as that is
what is key to these games. The strikers just have to be there for a chance to score, the defenders have to
make a mistake in order concede a goal!
Competition Type
So another thing you need to take into account when betting the number of goals; what type of competition
is the match? There are a number of different competitions and all of these competitions have different
stages that decide how many goals there are going to be. To name just a few there are Leagues (Premiership,
La Liga, Championship etc.), Knockout Competitions (FA Cup, League Cup, Later stages of the Champions
League), Group Stages (Europa League, Champions League).

All of these will affect the scoring as well. Take the Cup Finals for example, generally speaking these are
going to be low scoring affairs, more often than not a 1-0 or 2-0 encounter. In fact in the last 16 years the
Under 2.5 Goals bet would have won in 12 of the last 16 FA Cup Finals. On the other hand however the
Champions League finals would have been a tie with 8 matches finishing under 2.5 goals and 8 matches
finishing over.

This means there are obvious differences between English and European Finals with English finals tending
to be low scoring affairs and European Finals being a mixture (interestingly the only time in these statistics
that 2 english sides met each other in the Champions League Final the result was under 2.5 goals!).

So that's finals, in the beginning of the competition it is similar to a topvsbottom encounter with a notable
difference. The 'top' teams whenever playing lower league competition always tend to play a much
weakened young team, Arsenal, Chelsea and Man Utd are shining examples of this. This is when Giant
Killing comes in. This needs to be factored into your betting, if the team is a completely new starting 11
from their last 5 encounters then you cannot include those results in your reasoning. Do some research into
the players that are starting and determine their likelihood of scoring past the opposition and work from
there. If you cannot find any information about them then just move on, there will be plenty of matches on
cup day that you will be able to find some qualifying bets.

Another Competition type that you should look out for is the end of the season. When it gets to this point in
the season you are sometimes better off (if you can watch the match or get live up-to-date analysis) not
betting until after 5-10 minutes. This is because play is very tense, if a team is trying to break the top 4 and
needs a win they are just as likely to have a 0-0 draw as they are to cruising 4-0 in the game. This is because
the tension gets to them and if they are unable to string passes together and build momentum the match will
start to turn and their opposition will be more than happy to sit back and defend. This is why you should
watch the first ten minutes and bet in play. You will be able to see if the team can build their momentum and
you will be able to judge for yourself the likelihood of them breaking the deadlock, more often than not
when a team in that type of position breaks the deadlock the pressure will be off and the good football that
got them to that position will start to shine through and more goals will follow.

Another kind of match that will crop up towards the end of the season are relegation fodder grudge matches;
where two teams who are battling to stay in the league face off against each other. These are usually low
scoring affairs as both teams are hanging on and trying not to concede and then trying to nick that winner.

Luck
Obviously nothing you can do about luck in a football match, but you shouldn't just believe that it doesn't
happen. Liverpool fans will tell you that every now and again a beachball will fly on the pitch and score a
goal against you!

Not only beach balls but how many times have you seen an offside decision rule out a perfectly decent goal?
There are a huge number of lucky goals or lucky not goals that you should bear in mind when you are
betting on the total goals:

• Incorrect offside decisions.

• Offside goals ruled onside.
 • Balls that cross the goal line but are ruled no goal.
• Crazy deflections.
• Goal keeping errors.

Even penalties can be seen as a form of luck. If a penalty is given there is a 70% chance (approximately) that
penalty is going to result in a goal.

As I said before there is nothing you can do about luck in a game of football but there is something you can
do afterwards if you bet in-play.

Goals are big things in a game, they can open the flood gates for more goals or they can kill the game off
and ensure that there are no more goals. Keep an eye on the play and use your reasoning to determine what
will happen from here. If a team were knocking on the door the whole game and a fluke puts them in front
there is a good chance that they will go on to score a couple more. If however a team was on the back foot
and a fluke put them in front then they might just set up shop and put every man behind the ball until full
time.

Odds
Last but by no means least we will discuss the odds. Life would be much simpler if the 2.5 goal market was
Evens for the Overs and Evens for the Unders. Unfortunately for us however life does not work like that.
Life has given us odds.

The problem with the odds is that a lot of the time you will find a game that you are certain will go over 2.5
goals based on everything we have spoke about in this guide and look at the odds to find they are too low for
you to consider betting on.

This is the part of the guide were I cannot help you, all I can do is offer advice. What you need to do is
before you even look at the odds look at all the games that are being played and think about how many goals
there should be based on everything you now know about goals in football. Then convert this into your own
odds for example:

Man Utd are playing Everton, I think the game will have at least 3 goals and I am 70% confident, meaning I
believe I will be right 70 times and wrong 30 times out of 100. So the odds in my head should be 3/7 (~1.42
decimal odds) for Over 2.5 goals.

[This is right imagine you backed £1 each time, for the 7 times you win you would have won £3 and for the
3 times you would have lost you would be £3 out of pocket].

If I now find that the odds are infact 1.7 for the Over 2.5 goals then I should back it because at 1.7 I will win
7 times for a profit of £4.90 and lost 3 times for £3 leaving overall profit of £1.90.

This is what professional betting is at its core finding odds that are higher than what they should be so that in
the long run you have an edge over the bookmaker.

The key is mastering your predictions by utilising what I have mentioned in this guide, if I wasn't 70% sure
then I wouldn't have been able to come up with the odds I thought the Over 2.5 goals market should be and
then I would not have been able to place my bet because I would not have known if there was any value in
it!

So will leave you with this:

Know the market, know the odds, know the value.