FI Weekly Mag Issue 014 - 05/08/19

Issue 14 05/08/19

Weekly Magazine Unofficial Weekly Magazine for Football Index Traders

The New Season is Officially Here The best league in the world kick-starts this weekend. We look at a few of the key questions ahead of what will undoubtedly be another incredible season.

To steal the opening lyric to one of recent years’ biggest films: ladies and gents, this is the moment you’ve waited for. 88 days on from Manchester City becoming the first team in a decade to retain the Premier League title, Liverpool take on newly-promoted Norwich in the season opener.

The Nations League. The Copa America. International youth tournaments. Inter-continental friendlies. Transfer speculation. We haven’t been starved of football this summer. But none of it quite compares to the thrill of club football week-in, week-out.

To celebrate the return of the new Premier League season, Football Index Weekly Magazine previews some of the biggest questions ahead of the new season…

Follow us on Twitter @FI_WeeklyMag and join the discussion #footballindex

Can Liverpool finally lift the Premier League trophy?

To lose just a sole league game all season whilst tallying 97 points and still end up emptyhanded is unfortunate to say the least. Yet buoyed on by their Champions League victory bouncing back from their defeat just 12 months earlier - will give Liverpool the encouragement that this could finally be their yet. And yet, it probably won’t be.

Jurgen Klopp has built a formidable team, yet his team comes up against arguably the greatest Premier League side of all time in Manchester City. There is no reason to doubt why City couldn’t match their points tallies of the last two seasons, yet it’s hard to imagine Liverpool going another season with just one defeat.

Whether the push for the Champions League steals focus from the Blues’ title ambitions unlikely given the demands placed on the players by Pep Guardiola, proven by their clean sweep domestically last season - is the only hope Liverpool can have of finally lifting their maiden Premier League title.

Verdict: Manchester City to be champions Can Tottenham make it a 3-horse race?

Whilst finishing the season empty-handed, Spurs fans can look back fondly on the 2018-19 season that saw them reach a Champions League final and once again secure a top-4 league finish, all whilst coping with a delayed, but eventual, move in to a stunning new stadium.

There may be concerns about the way in which they drifted from the top two in the later stages of the season - along with never realistically looking like they could turn around that Champions League final - yet it would be harsh to criticize them.

The season ahead has seen them make a long-awaited transfer with record-buy Tanguy Ndombele arriving at the club, with others potentially set to follow: Giovani Lo Celso (£1.79) is expected to arrive by the end of the week.

Yet bridging a gap of 27 points to the Champions is not easily done, and whilst this team is certainly growing stronger, their lack of depth in comparison to the top 2 makes it unlikely they’ll be able to truly sustain a fight for the entire season. Yet the question marks surrounding Chelsea (transfer ban), Arsenal (shaky defence) and Manchester United (hit and miss) means anything less than a solid third-placed league finish will be deemed a disappointment.

Ndombele Verdict: too big of Current Price a gap to challenge £1.71 the top 2, but will comfortably finish 3rd.

Who will finish 4th, 5th & 6th?

Manchester United still finished 9 points ahead of 7th-placed Wolves last season: a disappointment for them compared to an excellent finish for the midlands-based side suggesting that the top 6 are still some way ahead of the rest of the pack. Yet the question marks around these teams coincide with a strengthening around them, meaning there has never been a better chance for an ‘unfashionable’ club to sneak their way in.

Wolves continue to build an exciting team of young Europeans, adding Patrick Cutrone (£1.12) and on-loan Jesus Vallejo (£0.54).

Yet whilst they could be hindered by a first Europa League campaign, they are not alone in improving. Everton look like going

FI Weekly Magazine’s Table Prediction: 1. Manchester City (C) 2. Liverpool 3. Tottenham 4. Arsenal 5. Everton 6. Man Utd 7. Chelsea 8. Leicester 9. West Ham 10. Wolves 11. Crystal Palace 12. Watford 13. Burnley 14. Bournemouth 15. Southampton 16. Aston Villa 17. Norwich 18. Newcastle (R) 19. Sheff Utd (R) 20. Brighton (R) from strength-to-strength, with signings including reliable experience (Fabian Delph, £0.49) and exciting prospect (Moise Kean, £2.65), whilst West Ham continue to build an exciting attack with Pablo Fornals (£1.39) and Sebastien Haller (£1.61). Meanwhile, Brendan Rodgers could have money to burn at Leicester with Harry Maguire’s (£2.31) departure.

All four of these teams should be looking upwards this season, and it is not completely absurd to imagine at least one of these sneaking in to the top 6 this season at the expense of one of the big boys.

Verdict: The traditional bigboys will need to up their games this season. Everton, in particular, look capable of capitalising.

Dividend Winners 29/07 - 04/08

29/07/19 5 x Media Day Media Buzz (First to Fifth) Nicolas Pepe 1110 Gareth Bale 890 Harry Maguire 640 Romelu Lukaku 630 Wilfried Zaha 470

02/08/19Treble Media Day Media Buzz

30/07/19 5 x Media Day Media Buzz (First to Fifth) Romelu Lukaku 960 Paulo Dybala 930 Nicolas Pepe 850 Harry Maguire 840 Bruno Fernandes 580

03/08/19Treble Media Day Media Buzz

31/07/19 5 x Media Day Media Buzz (First to Fifth) Paulo Dybala 1520 Nicolas Pepe 930 Harry Maguire 750 Harry Wilson 530 Romelu Lukaku 470

04/08/19Treble Media Day Media Buzz

First Harry Maguire Second Paulo Dybala Third Nicolas Pepe

First Harry Maguire Second Paulo Dybala Third Neymar

First Paulo Dybala Second Harry Maguire Third Bruno Fernandes

2210 980 850

1920 1180 840

1310 920 730

01/08/19 Treble Media Day Media Buzz First Paulo Dybala Second x Third x

x x x

Footie: 109,832

+2,682

Can any of the promoted sides avoid an instant return to the Championship?

It wouldn’t be unfair to say that, given the strength of some of the teams in the Championship, it was a surprise to see Norwich and Sheffield United take the top two spots: yet it is fully to their credit that they did so, and in style. They certainly face an uphill battle this season, starting as the bookies’ favourites for relegation.

Despite finishing 18 points behind Norwich, Aston Villa are deemed the most likely to stay up of the three sides, yet much will be dependent on how their new signings settle in after splurging over £100m on players; you only need to look at the fate of Fulham, who had become the first promoted side to spend such a figure.

Burnley have been tipped by some to have a difficult season, yet without the early Europa League start that seemed disrupt the entire first-half of their season, you would expect Sean Dyche’s side to far better. That leaves Brighton at the biggest risk, with new manager Graham Potter needing to find an alternative solution to simply relying on 35-year old Glenn Murray (£0.31) and his goals.

But what of Newcastle? On negative side, fans have seen a much-loved manager replaced with one who lacks Premier League managerial success, and continue to detest the owner. Yet on the positive side, £60m has been spent strengthening the side, with Allan Saint-Maximin (£1.11) joining record signing Joelinton (£1.17). It really could go either way at St James’ Park, yet given it’s never straightforward at the club, fans may need to fear the worst.

Verdict: Brighton to finish bottom and Sheffield United to fight valiantly but ultimately fall short.

The final spot could be a straight shootout between Norwich and Newcastle - though Aston Villa will join them should too many faces unsettle their squad.

5 Questions With...

Football Index Manager Football Index Manager has been on Football Index since October 2018 with a 60% ROI. He has an excellent YouTube channel packed with brilliant content for new and experienced traders alike: you can find the link to it and follow him on Twitter @FI_Manager Best Buy: My best buy in terms of my current holds is Raheem Sterling. I’m currently sitting on over 65% profit, combining both profit on the shares and earned dividends. My best buy in terms of a completed trade has to be Nicolas Pepe. I bought my first shares in Pepe in January, after analysing the top performers in the top leagues, in terms of ratings, goals, assists etc. I noticed that Pepe was performing to a very high standard, and after comparing him with both similarly performing players, and similarly valued players, I realised how underpriced he was. My average buy price for Pepe was around £1.50 per share, and my average sell price was around £2.56 per share. The total profit of this trade was nearly 67% profit, combining both profit on the shares and earned dividends.

Worst Buy: Honestly, I haven’t had a very unsuccessful trade that stands out, but rather a series of unsuccessful trades when I started out on the platform. These trades ranged from a 5% to 20% loss. They were players I bought for a variety of reasons, some on impulse, some on the trending list, some poorly recommended tips, and some by buying players who are very good in the world of football, but not very good in the world of Football Index. Luckily, these unsuccessful trades were in my first month of trading, while I was learning the ropes of the platform, and the silver lining of these trades is that you learn your lessons very quickly,

and it better informs future trades. Arguably, you learn more from your bad trades than you do from your good trades.

Biggest Regret: My biggest regrets, or worst trades, would possibly be trades that I planned to do but never did, or trades where I sold at the wrong time. For example, one trade I missed out on was Divock Origi. I knew that Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane would come back to preseason late, and probably miss the opening games. In the past few weeks I’ve been buying mainly PB players, but also anyone undervalued such as Origi. Origi was around 70p when I was contemplating buying him, and has risen to £1.08 within a month. That’s a 38p rise, which is over 50% profit, meaning I could have made an easy short term flip with 50% profit. When you work with a small budget like I do, you have to prioritise certain players/trades.

Sometimes, that means missing out on opportunities like the one above.

Best Tip: I have a few holds that I’m very confident in, such as Sterling, who ticks nearly every box there is to tick, in my opinion. The best tip I could give would maybe be looking at players that aren’t obvious holds, such as Maxwel Cornet. I always look at players statistics per 90 minutes, especially as a lot of young players aren’t starting every game, and are maybe restricted to sub appearances and limited minutes. If you look at Cornet’s statistics per 90 minutes, they are seriously impressive. He returns 0.5 goals and 0.4 assists per 90 minutes: that’s 0.9 goal contributions per 90 minutes. At the end of last season, he played the full 90 minutes in the last 3 games for Lyon, and he scored 5 goals and 2 assists. If he can start more next season, his output would greatly increase. He’s only 22 years old, and valued at only £0.98. There is massive potential with Cornet, and if everything goes to plan, he could easily double in price.

Best Piece of Advice: The first, and maybe most important, would be to only deposit what you can afford to lose. I would also recommend to only spend around 50% to 75% of your total deposit initially, and use these trades to better understand the market. Once you feel you have a fine grasp on how everything works, then you can spend the rest of your deposit.

Secondly, in terms of trading, I would recommend that new traders try to avoid ‘over-trading’.

Don’t hastily sell your shares just to jump on another player you have noticed is on a rise, or sell a player just because they have dropped and are in the red. Have faith in the reason you had when you first bought the player. I would also recommend having a diverse strategy. If any specific player/strategy takes a drop, then it’s usually balanced out by a rise in your other players/strategies. I currently buy premium players for PB & MB, mid-value players for current & potential PB, and cheap, undervalued players and a few young players for various reasons.

Thirdly, avoid the trending list. Players on the trending list are either being ‘pumped and dumped’, or are legitimate trades that have already gone through their rises, therefore limiting the potential for a further rise should you buy that player.

Fourthly, and most importantly, do your own research. The only way you can know whether a tipped player is actually a good tip, or a ‘pump and dump’, is by actually researching the player yourself. There are a selection of websites and apps you can use to research players, both in terms of statistics relating to match performance and statistics relating to dividends returns/potential.

Lastly, I would recommend getting involved with the brilliant, and very active, community of Football Index. My go to places for this are the official forum, social media and YouTube.

Football Index XI Over the next few issues, Betting2Win will be creating a series of football XIs. Head over to www.betting2win.co.uk for more great content!

The PERFORMANCE BUZZ XI With the new season upon us, people will be changing their portfolios from Media Buzz players towards Performance Buzz dividends.

The savvier investors on Football Index would have done this several weeks ago but for the recreational investor who hasn’t already, now is the time to invest in players that return decent Performance Buzz dividends.

With this in mind, we have put together a fantasy Football Index Performance Buzz XL based on a 4-4-2 formation with the highest average PB scores gained from Index Gain’s Basic Player Screener data.

Investing in players who return Performance Buzz (PB) dividends on a regular basis is a great way to boost profits.

A players PB average score is the total PB points awarded, divided by the number of games played and can be used as a projection for future scores.

Please remember that prices change daily, and we recommend conducting your own research when investing in any player on Football Index.

Goalkeeper Alisson (Buy Price £1.04) averages 93.92 (51 appearances) earning holders £0.07 divs. It is interesting to note that Florentina’s Dragowski (Buy Price £0.45) averaged 36.29 but earned holders £0.08.

Defenders Stand-out defender Joshua Kimmich (Buy Price £3.22) averaged a staggering 151.71 (41 appearances) and returned holders £0.29.

Manchester City’s Laporte (Buy Price £1.72) was a distant second with an average score of 128.57 (46 appearances) and £0.12.

Next up is 33-year-old Sergio Ramos (Buy Price £1.05) who averaged 126.55 (33 appearances), returning £0.14. His six goals certainly helped in bringing his average score up!

Arguably rated the best defender in the world, Virgil Van Dijk (Buy Price £3.02) averaged 125.84 (50 appearances) and returned £0.16 in PB dividends.

Midfielders Bayern Munich’s Thiago Alcantara (Buy Price £2.13) topped the average PB score for midfielders with 137.23 (35 appearances) generating £0.22 in dividends.

Montpellier’s Teji Savanier (Buy Price £1.35) was a close second with an average score of 132.69 (29 appearances) returning £0.13 in divs.

Atalanta’s Alejandro Gomez (Buy Price £1.48) averaged 124.53 (36 appearances) returning £0.16 and, making the final midfield spot, Real Madrid’s Toni Kroos (Buy Price £1.46) averaging 123.68 (38 appearances) and returning £0.08.

Forwards Neymar (Buy Price £7.30) tops the average Performance Buzz table with a score of 158.48 (23 appearances) returning £0.28 in divs. Playing nearly double the number of games than Neymar, Lionel Messi (Buy Price £5.15) averaged 149.91 (44 appearances) and earned holders £0.53.

Bad Week

Paulo Dybala: A mercurial talent that still doesn’t seem trusted enough to be a key member of the Juventus team. His failed switch to Man Utd may be a blessing in disguise, but what does the future hold for him?

Good Week

Harry Maguire: The world’s most expensive defender: not bad for ol’ Slabhead. Along with a hefty new pay packet, he’ll now be at the heart of one of the world’s biggest clubs as they look to return to the top.

Football Index Guru

Guest Blog

Football Index Guru has been on Football Index since May 2018 and has a 67% ROI. Over the course of the summer, he will feature in a weekly guest blog. You can follow him on Twitter @IndexGuru.

What came out in the FI announcement that wasn’t PB matrix?

Last Tuesday (30th July) Football Index set about their announcement for the 2019/20 campaign which was centred around the changes to the Performance Buzz scoring matrix. This has been well covered around the Football Index social sphere, but there were many other things that were covered which I feel we should be excited about. Let’s have a look at 5 of them.

International PB and IPDs A great addition from Football Index, as this keeps Performance Buzz being offered throughout the Euro 2020 qualifying international periods which have typically been barren for FI traders. This introduction of PB also prepares the way for the major tournament of Euro 2020 which, similarly to the 2018 World Cup in Russia, will provide traders with an exciting period during the summer. This offers greater value to some of those players who are from leagues outside the top 5 leagues as they will have opportunities to win PB and IPD’s in a competition that was previously limited. The introduction of In Play Dividends in this competition also opens up avenues to hold players for a 30 day period which also contains an international break as goals in this competition will also win dividends for traders. The fact that these qualifying games normally come in pairs means that in a short period of time there are double the opportunities for collecting dividends.

Different positions for different competitions In May we had a particularly scary morning when Opta decided to change the positions of players for the international period which were very different to the positions that players had been playing in across the season. One of the main players that this affected was Joshua Kimmich who, at that time, was moved from a defender to a midfielder - which obviously affected his price as the midfield is a more competitive area, meaning he was missing out on increased points in certain areas and lost the chance for clean sheet points. Football Index have therefore decided to introduce a range of positioning categories for different competitions and therefore avoid potential problems like the ‘Optagate’ that was previously seen.

European Multiplier Another issue that arose last season, and thankfully Football Index have done something to fix, was Ligue 1 fixtures being arranged on the same day as a Champions League quarter

or semi final which offer Treble PB. This angered many traders as it essentially devalued the Champions League players. In response to this FI have introduced a European multiplier which offers a 25% increase in PB scoring. This therefore doesn’t remove the possibility of these players from other leagues winning PB but improves the chances of the players competing in the latter stages of the European competitions.

In-play Dividends As had been expected, In-Play dividends are making a return of the 2019/20 season and there have been no changes to the payouts available based on the post share split rewards.

For a goal any midfielder or forward gains 1p of dividends and defenders or goalkeepers get 2p. In terms of assists, all players will earn 1p and for a clean sheet starting goalkeepers will gain 1p. All of these dividends are paid out for shares bought within the last 30 days and even though this will be their first full season on the platform they have become a cornerstone of the market and a key part of price change in the lower end of the market.

TV ad and new sponsorship While these weren’t a part of the announcement on Tuesday, they were released around the announcement and could be key towards the new season. The new television advert doesn’t go far to explain how the product works, but it does a good job of engaging football fans in the changing world of football and how Football Index can be the next big thing. The exciting new sponsorship announcement was the partnership with Fulham as their sponsor of training kits. This is another huge club that Football Index have partnered with, and between Fulham and Nottingham Forest Football Index are beginning to become embedded in football culture which can only be good for the future of the product.

Please remember: Football Index is a gambling platform.

Do not put in more than you can afford to lose.

Please gamble responsibly.