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Matt talks stats

First goalscorer - are you getting full value for your bet?

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"Magical" Matthew Walton turns his attention to Betfair's "first goalscorer" and "to score" markets this weeek and lets the stats do the talking to tell us at what prices Dean Ashton, Ronaldo and co offer value

With the season entering the final straight, and the action hotting up on both domestic and European levels, we turn our attention to the players who are spearheading this race for silverware (and, for that matter, the Golden Boot). The strikers.

Managers are prepared to pay a reliable finisher his weight in gold and we, as backers, should be equally thankful of a regular goalscorer. After all, such reliability affords us the opportunity to highlight trends and following such patterns allows us to make money!

In this article we're taking a look at the top end of the market. The leading strikers for the top ten clubs in the Premier League. We're all familiar with their names but do we really appreciate how they differ in terms of betting potential? And do we run the risk of missing out on good value bets (or backing poor value ones) by being ill-informed about their exploits.

As a fore-runner to future discussions we'll start the ball rolling with a look at scoring patterns, percentages and realistic prices. In short, who's worth backing and at what price.

The point is, we talk so much about these players, watch their scoring feats over and over again as they're repeated on TV, read about them daily in the papers etc that we expect them to score in every game (or so some layers would have us believe). Fact is, this just isn't true.

We've put together a simple table to illustrate the point. Just to show how some players are more, or less, prolific than you might first consider them to be. From this we can evaluate the kind of prices you should be looking for when considering a bet - or those to have in mind when you're laying the Ronaldos, Carews and Adebayors of this world.

The first column to study refers to the Scored/Played figures. Here you can see that Ronaldo, for example, is scoring in 56% of the matches he plays. A staggering figure which should make him about (1.78) in the 'To Score' market of any match he plays. Likewise, Fernando Torres should be (1.96) and Emmanuel Adebayor would be none too shabby at (2.0). And these are all extremely impressive strike rates, a goal every other game for a striker is some going.

This achievement drops down to (3.22) for Roque Santa Cruz - getting on the scoresheet on 9 occasions in 29 games - and a further dip to (4.0) for somebody like John Carew - who scored in 6 matches from 29 appearances. And, please note, this is to score at any time in a match let alone to score first.

Take this on a further step and you're looking at players' odds to score first in a match. Top of the list we see Ronaldo once again. He has scored the first goal 8 times in the 25 matches he has played this season. A 32% strike rate making for true odds of (3.12) for the Portuguese to bag the first goal of any match. Ask yourself, was he bigger than this to score first against Derby County last weekend? You bet he was.

Then, turn the table on its head and take Dean Ashton as another example. The former Norwich City man has scored in 6 of his 24 matches this season - not that impressive. But more alarming for backers (and of more interest to layers) is that Ashton has scored the first goal just once this season. A measly 4%. That would make his odds to score first something around (24.00). You'd have been struggling to see bigger than (10.00) for last Saturday's visit of Blackburn Rovers and some fixed odds firms had him down at (6.0)!!

As with all these things, it's a question of applying the statistics to the markets. Yes, there will be fluctuations on account of the opposition, home and away matches, player's form etc but taken as a rule of thumb such data illustrates what poor value there is in some markets ... and, by the same token, what opportunity there is for laying some serial under-achievers.

Note as well that some players, for example Yakubu, have more of a tendency to score the first goal when they do score. 'Yak' has only scored in 8 matches this season but 7 of those occasions have been the first goal (87.5%). Fernando Torres is down at 35.7% because whilst he's scored in 14 matches, only 5 times has he scored the first goal.

So when you're looking at the big matches this weekend (Chelsea v Arsenal, Manchester United v Liverpool) it's worth bearing these statistics in mind. Yes, tough games for all the sides involved but just see whether you're being offered bigger than (4.76) for Frank Lampard to score first or, for that matter, less than (10.00) for Roque Santa Cruz to bag the first goal for Blackburn against Wigan.

Interesting talking points in their own right but greater familiarity with these kind of statistics will aid your betting and should improve your profitability.