St. Patricks VS Derry City

St. Patricks welcome Derry City for this Irish Premier League opening round at Richmond Park in Dublin early Saturday morning Beijing time. For a European first tier this league is of very low level – even worse than the Finnish Veikkausliiga for example.. Football fans cannot expect a particularly entertaining match here. However, my fans and I have done very well betting on this league. Our goal is, after all, to make a long-term profit! The bookies seem to make a lot of mistakes with their odds on this league – as well as other smaller leagues. They understandably put more resources into big, popular leagues with the biggest betting limits. The opening rounds in most leagues are usually pretty low-scoring as the teams are often still quite far from their best level.. Defending is in general easier than attacking – especially if/when the pitch is not in too great shape. Indeed, I see this clash as even more low-scoring than the bettingmarket does. Furthermore, odds on the draw are quite lucrative – over 3.30. My estimation for the under 2.5 total goals being scored is 66% and 33% for the draw. I cannot agree with the largest, usually pretty smart bookmakers that accept the biggest bets from customers. Indeed, these bookmakers see Derry City as solid favorites offering them odds of around 2.20-2.40 to win. With today's lineups I do not see an actual favorite in this game - it is a coin toss (50-50%)  which means that my fans and I have an excellent chance of winning once again betting on this league with the recommended +0.5 goals handicap on the St. Patricks. 

There is no doubt about the fact that Derry City are the better team here but the difference in class between the teams is pretty marginal! Defensively the visitors do have a quite clear edge as their defensive structure and the defenders' skill level is better on average. However, quite interestingly St. Patricks even scored more goals than the visitors last season in this league – 57 to be precise. Derry City netted the ball 53 times and were undoubtedly somewhat disappointing in this area of the game. However, they have room for improvement and I see the teams equal in this area of the game. Derry City finished in 2nd place last season – a whopping 13 points behind Shamrock Rovers though.. They allowed a total of 27 goals. St. Patricks played a positive season and took fourth place with 61 points. They conceded 37 goals and would have to improve in this area of the game if they want to make it to the top-3 and earn a ticket to UEFA Conference League qualification for the next season. This would be a surprise, yes, but is still more probable than the bookies or most football journalists seem to believe at this point.. The host are in fine form winning four games in a row and not losing any of their most recent five matches. Moreover, they have allowed just one goal in these five games! I have not been able to see all the matches but based on my observations and match reports their defense has looked very solid. However, I want to mention the four most recent games were preseason friendlies. Derry City, on the other hand, have taken three wins, one draw and lost once in their latest five games. They did beat Shamrock Rovers in the Super Cup final 2-0 a week ago and deserved the win but the match was still more balanced than the final score would reflect. This win seems to affect the odds too much here.. The ball possession was almost 50-50% and Derry City recorded four shots on goal – the opponent's number was two. St. Patricks do have a very good home crowd by this league's standards and won 10/18 home games in this league last season with a goal difference of 28:16. Their players' total market value (3.38 million euros) is, according to a reliable source, Trasfermarkt.com, marginally bigger than that of the visitors' squad!