"Its an absolute disgrace".
"Its outside the box".
"Things like that turn games".
"I can't reflect on the detail right now".
"I have not seen the flow of the game".
"That decision has cost us".
"We were in control".
"Five minutes of madness have cost us".
"The players are devastated".
"We have to stick together".
"We were away from home".
That was pretty much the summation of the ramblings of Steve McClaren in the aftermath of England's demise in Moscow. The England job is a pressurised post and McClaren does not possess the necessary range of talents to even have been considered for the post in the first place. The bookies choice has ended up costing the bookies millions if England's non-qualification is allowed to become a reality. Short-termism again...
The markets are up and running for the next fall-guy to have the misfortune to attach his reputation to the crooked edifice that is the FA and Team England. Keegan is around 66/1 which is entertaining and he is not the only manager to have severely devalued his market price through the England effect. Of recent coaches, only Eriksson has rescued his reputation post-England and Shinawatra should be grateful that Ranieri was otherwise engaged. These Specials Markets are fairly interesting markets and often transient too - Betfair have removed their outrageously overrounded market from their available markets (245% overround!!). If you can bothered putting the time aside, you can make profits in these markets by taking advantage of such obvious value. An overround of 245% on a 30-runner market is abusive, however, and these markets frequently have excessive tilts to the bookmaker. Particularly prone to this market manipulation are the events that are either totally randomised or are totally outside of any bookmaker influence. This is particularly marked in the latter case. From the perspective of a market maker, a random walk event is bad enough but markets where the information uniquely resides elsewhere eg the winner of the Booker Prize are anathema to bookmakers. Hence the overround.
Specials markets are pumped for liquidity by collusion with the mainstream media over the generation of "steamers". Capello seen in a London hotel... the Scolari myth... By implying that serious inside money has gone on these steamers, the industry presses one of those buttons that addicts just cannot resist. The psychological mechanisms are interesting and not for this place but the fear of missing out on an easy earner that everybody else is involved in has market influence from betting markets to pyramid schemes. Contrary trading is a profitable route to follow on steamers as long as you are close enough to the market reality to be able to spot the black swan event. But, once again, only if you can be bothered doing the work...
Perhaps, these are interesting medium term markets to trade but, to me, I've just got better things to do with my life, really. Although the margin is an issue, the lack of market efficiency means that there is excessive value to be found on certain options. Despite that, there is a whole world of markets to trade and any involvement in peripheral markets will always be entirely intuitive.
And it is on an intuitive level that I'll place my bet on a tasty 100/1 shot to be the next permanent England manager...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
