Marcus Richards
Whether betting on soccer or participating in a fantasy league, the accuracy of your predictions will be vital to any success you have. And the good news is that, with a little legwork and research, you have the chance to improve the quality of your analysis exponentially – hopefully, that should lead to a more accurate read of a particular game, which in turn may enable you to place smarter bets and picking handier players for your fantasy roster.
So how do you go about making better soccer predictions?
Data is Your Friend
When betting on soccer, there’s a temptation to consider only the most basic facts: a team’s reputation and their current form being one of them. But the underlying data can be a vital descriptor that backs up or, perhaps, opposes your gut instinct.
For example, the Expected Goals stat details the quality of goalscoring chances that a team creates and yields to. Burnley, who were expected to do okay in their return to the Premier League, have since seen their odds for relegation sliced to +200 in the betting on football – behind only Luton (-500) and Sheffield United (-400). Why? Well, after six rounds of games, the Clarets sit bottom of the Expected Goals table, i.e. they are yielding better goalscoring opportunities than they are creating themselves.
Defeat at Turf Moor pic.twitter.com/6ER4b9wPKk
— Burnley FC (@BurnleyOfficial) September 23, 2023
So the sportsbooks are following the data to debunk their own pre-season predictions that Burnley would enjoy a solid, if unspectacular, season in 2023/24.
There’s a stack of player stats available too that detail how an individual is performing beyond merely goals, assists, and clean sheets. Who makes the most key passes? How many key tackles do they make? How many touches of the ball are they getting per game?
The beauty of modern soccer is that there are so many websites, blogs, and social media channels sharing deep stats free of charge. Using these in your analysis to improve your predictions is a no-brainer.
On the Pulse
If data is king in soccer analysis, accessing the latest breaking news stories is not far behind.
This information is particularly important on gameday, where news of team selection tends to break within an hour or so of kick-off.
If you have your finger on the pulse, you can access team news within moments of it being published – placing your bets and/or changing your fantasy lineups accordingly if a key player has been surprisingly rested or left out of the team.
There is an edge in reacting as quickly as possible to these breaking news stories, which you can find in many different places online no matter where you are. Social media is as useful a source as any these days in getting fast news, although you should ensure you only follow the most reputable of channels – that way, you know the information on your feed is likely to be accurate.
Following as many X (Twitter) feeds as you can for the teams/leagues that you have an interest in will increase the pool of information at your fingertips – that, allied to an appreciation of deep data, will help you to improve your soccer predictions in no time at all.
