Weirdly just looked at the Carabao cup fixtures, thanks to Brizzol's superb effort the final four is now NOT Man Utd, Man City, Arsenal, Chelsea.....but it could very easily have been exactly that. Fix much? So is this a sign of utter dominance or is something far more sinister at work underneath the surface and - if so - how bad is it for the game?
Think it demonstrates how strong the squads of the other teams are more than anything - Arsenal made 11 changes from the team that beat us last Sat and still managed a win.
Man U pretty much put out a first 11, there were no players who definitely wouldnt have got in the first team apart from the keeper, and he still had a decent game. Of city put out their 2nd team again they've got a chance, looking at how they only just scraped through on Tuesday.
Just a sign of how many good players are quite happy to play 14 games a season and primarily sit on the bench but pick up £30,000+ pw doing it. They don't seem to be concerned about their football careers as opposed to their bank balances. Makes me go back to one of my bugbears, how many millions of pounds does someone need in a lifetime and how many can they spend in a lifetime?
can not say nowt on here m8 .. people think your its in ya heed... horse racing is a complete fix ... thats for sure ..also people think its in ya heed
With the level of investment made by the 'traditional' clubs, it should be no surprise that they dominate year after year. Bristol City are having a truly wonderful season and long may it continue.
Your point if that 3 of the 4 finalists are from the top 5 teams in the league and that this must indicate that the results are fixed ? Not sure I follow the reasoning. You would expect the final 4 to be made up from the top 4 - 6 teams, wouldn't you ? I mean, better teams tend to win more games. That's how you can tell they're better.
Holy crap, man. My point is they conveniently missed each other throughout the draw. It's not rocket science.
Speaking as someone who works hard to turn a profit in horse racing I can tell you that, for the most part* it's not a fix. *this weasly-wordy bit: in any sport/investment/activity where's there's a mix of humans and money then someone, somewhere will be corrupt but that doesn't mean it's a complete fix. With racing one has to know mathematics, probability theory and that's just for starters. Then, like anything that's to do with punting in one form or another, if you don't know what your overall edge is then you're not going to get anywhere. You have to know when to get the prices and which prices and where. In short, treat it as a business. But despite the Dick Francis novels it's not as bent as it's made out to be and certainly not as bad as it was before the game sorted itself out.
the only ones that are not fixed are the classics and the national ...maybe i could of put it a better way .. they try to keep it fair ..but the trainers and jockeys and owners do there best to fix them .. watched doc programs on trainers etc .... jockeys banned for non trying ..well says it all really ...
Honestly I don't know. At times of course you do wonder. Certainly Sky exert an enormous amount of influence over the game in this country and I would not be surprised at all to find they are fiddling fixtures. Certainly it is often the case the year after winning a title, the fixtures seem to stack up against that team. The fixtures also seem to fit in with certain stories they would like. Obviously it would be foolhardy to think they don't at times influence the league etc. The question is whether that is deliberate. I'd probably think some of it is to be honest. Yes everyone loves a conspiracy and they're often bollocks. However I think the whole Blatter/FIFA/UEFA etc affairs show just how football has operated for a long time. Scudamore and co are obsessed with their product. They have put it above National Team interests and everything else in its path. Some will disagree but to me its blatant. In terms of Bristol City. I don't know. It would not surprise me as finals involving massive underdogs have a habit of being bad for the product. However as you go further in a competition you are going to run into the better teams. Particularly now when we've allowed money to corrupt the game here and develop an almighty chasm between the have and have nots.
Only the classics and the National? Well, out of 10,000 races a year you are saying that just six aren't fixed. Bloody hell, what sized tin hat do you wear because I think I need to send you a spare one for Christmas? There are some trainers which have been known to nobble horses but, by and large, they have gone. Jockeys that don't try are usually caused by mistakes or by looking after the welfare of a beaten horse but the jockey doesn't push it because it would cause injury to the horse and they still get done. Most of the documentaries are produced by idiots with no idea. But I can show you simple proof that racing isn't fixed for all of 9,994 of the remaining races on the Racing Calendar is that the same section of the betting public, like myself, make a continuous profit year in, year out. I can tell you here any now what my expected strike rate is for the forthcoming year (13.7%) and I can tell you what I expect my overall ROI% to be (about the same as it happens). If the game were bent then I wouldn't be able to tell you what my likely strike rate and returns would be. People who shout that the game is bent just simply haven't learned the required mathematics, money management, probability and have worked out their own edge from their own models. My colleague is on his way to his first million purely on backing and laying (again it's all about 'value', i.e. edge) and he's developed his own neural network to produce his model and is doing rather alright. He's already paying Premium Charges on Betfair and he's not a bookmaker nor a trader. I am going to make a new Neural Network to look at late prices because I have my edge on early prices. My bets are on for the day, twenty five of them, and each one of those I have an edge. I have no idea how many will win and I have no idea how many will lose. If things run to average returns then three winners today would be the norm but it could be none it could be half a dozen. But in a course of a year I may have around 10,000 bets and expect about 1,370 to win over that year. Anyway, the next network will look at late prices, just before the off, because when I punt there's little liquidity in the exchanges so the amount that I can bet is limited. So, I need to research, via a new network, and design a new software model for the markets five minutes before the off where the lion's share of the liquidity is but where the edge available may be a third of what's available in the early markets. Given that I am able to make a consistent software model which works year in-year out then it shows that your premise is that the game is fixed is wrong. I don't care what the TV programmes say that you've watched; most of them have been researched my people with a pre-determined idea and little knowledge. I am not saying that the game is 100% clean. But the amount of fixing is insignifcant noise compared to injuries, accidents, mistakes and a thousand and one things that go on on the course which effect the running of a race.
I’ve thought this for a long time. Man City have gotten favourable ties in al cup competitions this season.
