2012/13 Season Round-Up

"No football for three months!"

It's been a season to forget and one with very few positives, but despite the poor standard of football on offer this season, I still found myself yesterday morning thinking, "Ar, no!  No football for three months!"

Obviously the eternal optimist in me wants to hope that next season will be better, but for that to happen changes clearly need to be made.  I've gradually lost patience with Alan Pardew and his constant excuse making as the season has gone on, but I'm not necessarily as desperate to see him go as some fans are.  I just want him to start accepting responsibility when things go wrong.

Managers are susceptible to good and bad form, just like players, but if things are to improve then Pardew needs to recognise his mistakes.  He needs to be more ambitious.  He needs to realise that avoiding relegation isn't a success.  He needs to realise that all clubs suffer from injuries so the time to complain about a lack of depth in the squad is pre-season when you can do something about it, rather than halfway through the season when the damage is already done.

And most importantly, Alan Pardew needs to start recognising and acknowledging when things haven't worked and then change things accordingly.  But based on this season his answer too often seems to be to look for excuses rather than analyse how he can look to make improvements.

I don't want to get too negative because in amongst all the doom and gloom it's easy to forget that we still have a potentially decent group of players.  Most of the squad who finished fifth in 2011/12 are still here.  The problem has been that too many of them haven't reached the consistency or the form of the previous season.

Anyway, only three months until next season...





My final set of general football tips didn't do too well with my relatively safe 20 point accumulator on:

Liverpool V QPR - Match Result: Liverpool at 1.22
Tottenham V Sunderland - Match Result: Tottenham at 1.3

...being the only winning bet with a return of 34 points.


I started this blog to test whether it's better to bet with your heart or your head and in the end the results were as follows:

My general football tips made a profit 19 out of 34 weeks.
My Toon tips made a profit 11 out of 31 weeks.

My general football tips most successful period was a run of seven consecutive profitable weeks.
My Toon tips most successful period was a run of four consecutive profitable weeks.

So the statistics would suggest that as a Toon fan it's definitely better to steer clear of betting on Newcastle and instead stick to betting on football in general.

Of course, this will be at least partly due to the disappointing season we've just had, as obviously I don't like to be a Traitorelli when betting on the Toon, and I dare say that making optimistic bets on the Toon during the 2011/12 season would have yielded far more positive betting returns.  Things are never predictable as far as Newcastle are concerned though, so overall I would still conclude that, at least most of the time, it's probably wise to avoid betting with your heart and stay clear of the Toon when looking for a bet.

Finally, over the summer I'll be coping with my football withdrawal symptoms by keeping an eye on some of the football betting markets such as various transfer odds and of course betting prices for next season.