How The Transfer Window Changed The Odds
Even by the spending waterfall that is always the summer transfer window, this one was pretty obscene: “what financial crisis,” you might be forgiven for wondering, £1bn (€1.16bn) later in the English Premier League alone.
But some clubs did much better than others in the summer football transfer market, and this will have a big impact on the betting odds in the Premier League, Bundesliga and other major leagues for clubs like Manchester City, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Juventus.
Online sportsbooks don’t seem to have noticed, but we have.
Premier League: Chelsea Win and Manchester City lose
The markets have been unusually slow to realise what a good transfer window Chelsea had and what a poor one Manchester City had.
Premier League 2021/22 Total Spend In The Summer Transfer Window
Total spend was over £1bn, (€1.16bn) That is £266m (€310m) less than last summer’s but still saw a net outlay of £593m (€690m) once you deduct income from player sales of £446m(€543m). World-wide pandemic? Huh, what world-wide pandemic?
In particular Chelsea’s signing of the Belgian bullet that is Romalu Lukaku (£97.5m, or €114m) should in our view have shortened odds on Chelsea to win the Premier League yet Chelsea’s title odds in the race for the Premier League 2021/2 remain largely unchanged at around 3.75
Man City Transfer Market Performance
City, in contrast, failed to land Harry Kane or – if they were ever serious – Cristiano Ronaldo, or indeed any new striker. Manchester City’s odds to win the Premier League remain stubbornly at 2.2.
They did sign Jack Grealish (£100m, €116m) who could become a super-star, but arguably they already had a pretty amazing midfield. They will now have to gamble that the likes of Gabriel Jesus – for so long a bit-part player at the Etihad Stadium – will score goals as well as create them.
True, City can still score goals for fun (as Arsenal discovered recently) with goals throughout the team, their movement being so good.
But considering this is very nearly a two-horse race for the Premier League title, the odds on Chelsea look ever-more attractive.
As the Secret Tipster points out, at the very least you should be betting on Chelsea to finish in the top two of the Premier League.
We don’t want to call this free money as with all bets, things can go wrong, but can you really see Manchester United or Liverpool beating them in the Premier League title race?
The EagleBet sports betting specialists panel can’t, and while these odds have shortened a bit, you can still get 1.83 on Chelsea to finish in the top two of the Premiership. At those odds that looks like an attractive bet to us.
How About Manchester United or Liverpool for the Title?
Manchester United (£134m, €156m) were the second biggest Premier League spenders behind bottom club Arsenal (£157m, €183m), notably with Jadon Sancho for £73m (€85m) from Borussia Dortmund, even though he has inexplicably spend most of the early season on the bench.
Notably, of course, they also re-signed the great Cristiano Ronaldo, such a brand he is identified in the world’s mind with the number “7”, though the real spend there is not reflected in these figures because that deal is more about his eye-watering wages.
Given Manchester United’s spending in this and recent transfer windows, arguably Manchester United should now be competing with their Manchester rivals and Chelsea for the title.
But realistically, they are not quite. They do now have that great out and out striker – which is what Ronaldo has now developed into – but as Juventus discovered, this is a double-edged sword.
Ronaldo scored a huge number of goals for Juve – you can’t fault him for that – but they went from being on the verge of establishing themselves as a European super-club when he signed to something far less successful. It became all about Ronaldo, not the team.
That is the danger for Manchester United, who could now find themselves short of a game plan and with some unhappy players as they admit this transfer was something like an unplanned pregnancy: sort of “wonderful – but help!”.
You might argue that odds on Manchester United to win the Premier League are now a little too long at 6.00. But not by much. If you really want to bet on Manchester United, consider them for top two (at odds of 3.0) but in truth we cannot recommend you take this bet. Our tip would still be for Chelsea and Manchester City for the top two places in the Premier League.
As for the other “big four” clubs, the bookies still have Liverpool as third-favourites for the Premier League title.
But their total spend was just £36m (€42) with a net spend of £11m (€13m) and we do worry that Liverpool are falling behind. Sure, we must not get suckered into the mindset of the modern fan that pounds or euros spent equates to league points gained – it doesn’t. But they had a disappointing Premier League campaign last time and it doesn’t look to us as if they are about to turn it round. Liverpool’s odds for the Premier League title of 5.5 look a little mean to us.
By the way, Spurs have started well, had a good window and with Liverpool and Manchester United a bit unpredictable, they could be worth a very small bet for top 4.
Everton and West Ham
To illustrate that it is not about how much you spend but who you spend it on, look at Everton. They were the bottom club for spending in this transfer window with an outlay of just £1.6m or less than €1.9m (which barely rents a yacht with a few crates of Cristal and a team of hookers thrown in for a Premier League striker’s annual summer holiday).
Yet there were a lot of shrewd, bargain buys by manager Rafa Benitez. He might have been constrained due to the profligacy of previous managers, but here was a strategist still at the top of his game showing that there are massive bargains out there if you are interested in players who score, make and save goals rather than shift shirts in the virtual club shop.
Despite Everton’s new parsimony they are the 7th shortest priced club to finish in the top half at odds of 14. A lesson there.
Incidentally, West Ham look good value in that market for a top half finish at around the same odds (priced almost identically to Arsenal, by the way, who as the Secret Tipster has warned, are in all sorts of trouble despite their spending splurge).
The Hammers had a brilliant season last time, look just as good this time, have had a decent window on the whole (they didn’t land Jesse Lingard who will continue to clutter up the B Team – and wage bill – at Old Trafford, but crucially they kept Declan Rice).
La Liga and Bundesliga
Perhaps the starkest example of where the transfer market can impact on odds, look at Barcelona. Barca were hard to separate from Real Madrid at the start of the season but have now drifted to 3.75. That still looks over-priced when you think that Sergio Aguero left City to play with Messi but now will be flanked by one ex-Newcastle and one ex-Middlesbrough attacker. Living the dream…
Atletico are now looking much better value at odds of 3.5.
For Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich it was a very quiet window. On a positive they did not lose goal machine Robert Lewandowski but they didn’t do much to strengthen their squad.
That said, how much did the likes of Borussia Dortmund improve relative to them? After losing Sancho they were unable to replace him with Callum Hudson-Odoi for example.
Nothing in the transfer window changes our view that Bayern Munich look strong favourites for the Bundesliga.
Placing a Bet
The Bundesliga is perhaps an exception as the transfer window in England, Spain and indeed France has had a significant impact on the domestic leagues. But the bookies don’t seem to have factored that in. Use our expert tips and predictions and register with a new bookie today where you don’t have an account by clicking on the links and banners you see on EagleBet, claim their big welcome bonus offer and use their money to bet using our Premier League, Bundesliga and La Liga predictions.
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