EPL 11 & 12 Aug

The start of the Premiership season is always exciting, especially after we have had to endure one of the longest summer breaks with no serious football ever.

However the opening day of fixtures brings its own problems. First off is that most of the footballers will not be fully fit. That is not to say they will be totally unfit but the season is a marathon of 38 games and it does not make sense to go into it fully wound up as it is almost impossible to sustain 100% fitness through the season.

Add in the fact that many teams will have several new players who will take time to fit into the playing style of the team – it will take more than a couple of sessions on the training pitch to achieve this – and you can see that it is hard for a side to perform at their best.

Historically there are a couple of trends on the first day of the season to follow. The first is that home sides tend to better than average. This is because managers and players know the importance of getting off to a good start in front of their home fans and giving their season some good momentum. By contrast, managers often go into the first away game of the season with the view that getting a point would be a good result.

The second trend is that the newly promoted sides tend to perform better than expected. This is usually because managers of these sides know they can pick up points more easily early on and because they will have worked harder over the summer to achieve immediate results in the first four or five games of the season. These sides know that a poor start to the season will almost certainly doom them to early relegation, so they play harder.

For bettors the games in August need to be treated with a degree of caution. Stakes should be kept lower than during the rest of the season and large wagers on tempting looking odds should be resisted.

Saturday’s games

The seven games today hardly contains any ‘must bet’ material; in fact it is almost tempting not to have a single bet. However I do think it is worth having a small investment on Aston Villa who host Liverpool. Villa have only made two signings over the summer and as a result should settle into the new season relatively easily. They ended last season with a run of nine games unbeaten and will rightly have a degree of confidence going into this game. The absence of Sorensen in goal – out because of a hamstring injury – is a concern but there is no reason why Villa should be such huge underdogs against Liverpool. The Reds have spent considerable sums over the summer and it is far from certain that Benitez’s signings will fit straight in. I would be surprised to see Torres adapt to the tough nature and speed of the Premiership immediately while yan Babel, Yossi Benayoun and Andriy Voronin will all take time to adapt to Liverpool’s style of play. The bookies look to have got carried away with the usual pre-season hype surrounding Liverpool and Aston Villa at home look worth a solid two point bet (+½) at 1.87.

[Liverpool won 2-1]

The only other game I considered betting was to take Derby off level goal at home to Portsmouth. The bookies seem to think County are relegation certainties and the odds on a home win to kick off the season do look a trifle generous. I am however happy to watch and see how the Rams look this season, especially as they have added so many players to their squad since they gained promotion to the top flight.

Sunday’s games

The three games today all feature big home favourites and with Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal all playing at home the bookies will be hoping that at least one of them trips up on the opening day. If all three win and cover the handicap then the bookies could have a nasty start to the season.

I am not going to recommend a bet on these games but if I had to have a bet then I would take Fulham to cover the handicap against Arsenal. This is in no way a suggestion I like Fulham - in fact I have had a good bet on them to be relegated - but a 1 1/4 goal handicap this early in the season is a pretty chunky handicap, especially given Arsenal's lack of home form at the Emirates.

All the favourites look a trifle high on the handicap - partly due to the high level of success of favourites in Saturday's games - and you could do a lot worse than laying the lot of them on Betfair and hoping for an upset. Myself, I will just be watching from the sidelines.