F.A. Cup - Who's Going To Win?

There’s some mouthwatering ties and it’s the type of draw that offers hope to several clubs. Man City will be confident of beating anyone, Tottenham have to beat the best to win it and others will be encouraged knowing Arsenal have already gone and either Tottenham or Man City will follow.

Starting with Tottenham and Man City, Bet365 opened up with Spurs at 7/2 to qualify (now 10/3). What price Man City against anybody else? That suggests their 10/3 outright isn’t a bad price, so I‘d plump for a back of Man City outright and support Spurs to qualify. Money back if Spurs go through and around 12/5 for City to go all the way if they’ve qualified. What I’d strongly urge against is taking Tottenham at odds between 9/1 and 12/1 generally available. Yes, they could win the cup but a 9/1 shot they certainly aren’t, and I have them around 20/1 in my book.

I’ve created my prices for the tournament starting with eyeballing it all and working out a 100% book. I’ve followed that up by taking my ratings for each team and seeing what prices that implies.

There’s always a proviso with this. Some teams won’t take it as seriously but it seems to me that if you get through this round everybody fancies their chances.

I rate the sides at the top of the championship highly and maybe they are priced up generously because they aren’t Premier league and, of course, will have promotion on their minds, but they are too big to be ignored.

Leicester 50/1, Leeds 66/1, Southampton 100/1 and Ipswich 100/1 strike me as worthy each way bets with reasonable fourth round draws.

Elsewhere I like Everton at 40/1, Brighton at 18/1 and Nottm Forest at 66/1, all again being each way selections.

Man Utd at 9/1 and Liverpool at 4/1 are sound protection bets as they both have ties they’d expect to win. You could do a Liverpool strategy. Back them at 4/1 and cover at around 20/1 for Norwich to qualify. As an example, £100 to win the cup and £5 Norwich to qualify doesn’t give much away.

All bets carry an element of risk and these in particular could be swayed massively by the draw at each stage but price is crucial. Returning to Spurs, they could have been backed at 14/1 prior to the third round. They’ve been given the toughest team to play, yet they are now 9/1 with some bookies. A lot of this betting lark is about swerving the poor value bets. For sure, I can’t say that they won’t win the cup but everything has its price and, if you want to get with them, back them to qualify and then back them on the outright as the long term odds will work out better than 9/1.

Oddschecker will show you where to find those best odds. It’s a most useful website but remember it’s not there just for the punter. Every best price that’s taken will be spotted by the bookmaker. Below I’ve provided my staking structure. I’m not a tipster, just somebody the bookies don’t like taking bets from as they have a habit of returning more than was laid out, subtly different.

100/1, 66/1 and 50/1 are speculative from a pricing perspective and don’t need fortunes laying out to make a decent return. A winning £1 each way bet at 100/1 would return £152, so always remember that likelihood. At those prices they need to be backed each way. Hopefully those teams can come through and be rewarded with a friendly 5th round tie.

Stake wise I’d start at 1 point each way for the 100/1 shots, 1.5 each way at 66/1 with 2 each way for the 50/1 and 40/1’s. Liverpool and Man City get 20 points at 4/1 and 10/3 respectively with a 1-point saver for Norwich to qualify and 6 for Spurs at 10/3.

Let’s hope for some good results and a kind next round draw.