Sample newsletter and clubgowi notes on three teams ...........
Aug 17, 2021
You can see yesterday's subscriber newsletter in full below, those notes were also sent to everyone in the database yesterday as part of the free August email update, the Ligue 2 game was a draw, which is "good" but I think the real point of interest is the content on the three teams which should be valuable going forward and repay reading or re-reading ...............
Monday August 16th
Next newsletter will be sent @ 10:00 UK time on Tuesday ......Championship and MLS (full midweek round in each) plus Champions League and notes on another League 1 team (see below).
Ligue 2: Paris FC - Auxerre
I previewed Auxerre's second game of the season (today is #4) when they hosted Grenoble ..............
Interesting game with regard to this Ligue 2 season.
In 20-21 Grenoble finished 4th with 65 points, Auxerre were 6th just missing out on the playoff places with three points less.
Both teams had their budgets trimmed by 2m euros for this season, Auxerre down from 21m to 19 m, which still leaves them with the second biggest in Ligue 2 and it is "only" a 9.52% reduction, Grenoble from 10m to 8m which is a 20% drop off and leaves them in the bottom third budget group.
Having come so close (Grenoble were top at the Christmas break) it was perhaps more of a shock that they have been given so little to work with. They were a surprise package last season and good defensively, but they finished their opening game with a backline all aged 30 + and conceded three goals when the veteran quartet were all together after the break and there is genuine concern that as a group, they are past their best. Grenoble lost that opener 4-0 to Paris FC, a game we discussed on Saturday , they had beaten the capital team less than 3 months earlier in the postseason, but in the opening day loss not only gave up 4 goals without reply, but were 2-18 attempts, 0-11 on target, 0-2 BC's and 1-14 ITB attempts. It is hard to take any comfort from that, or to see a lot of promise for the hosts at this early stage of the season.
Stand out DM Charles Pickel was not in the squad last week and is missing again today and rumours that he is on his way out of the club have continued to build. Grenoble are actually missing a host of players and have called up two B team players for today and only 5 of the 11 who started the playoff game in late May are available.
Auxerre opened with a 2-1 win away to Amiens, they trailed at half time after falling out of the blocks, but dominated statistically after the break when they piled on the pressure. This is a big club, who should never have been out of the top flight for so long (this is their 8th season in L2) , but last season was their best finish and their second under talented and vastly experienced head coach Jean-Marc Furlan, who knows how to get out of this division (four L2 promotions). Under him they have finished 11th then 6th and JMF has a habit of promotion in his third year at a club, he did it with Brest as recently as 2019 and I would have seen Auxerre as a major contender and they still might be . However, they have some financial restrictions placed on them ( DNCG regulations) and they can only bring in free transfers, which to be honest, is what many teams are doing in any case, so is perhaps, not the punishment it once might have been. The loss of Mickael Le Bihan and Kevin Fortune is bigger (but will free up some salary) and they appeared to start with a false nine last week, but a more natural 4-1-4-1 today (which was the formation that Paris used last week) I suspect, with Lassine Sinayoko who helped turn things around from the bench last week, surely starting up top. They look to have good attacking options from midfield and out wide and I do expect a striker to come in before the end of the month. I like the signing of Gaetan Perrin who was good in a poor Orleans team and he has a quality background (Lyon) .
We will know more about Auxerre after today for sure and how they are going to be post MLB, but I am very "anti" Grenoble right now and their stats last week were beyond awful and it has to be the home win for me.
Auxerre won that 3-0 and have played once subsequently, a 0-0 home draw with Ajaccio, across the two games they were very good defensively, giving up just two attempts on target total and no BC's. Prior to that draw I updated with .........
Auxerre signed Gaetan Charbonnier from Brest this week and he will surely slot straight into that striker role we discussed earlier this week, he is very experienced and has a goal contribution (goal or assist), every 132 minutes across 170 Ligue 2 appearances, every 89 minutes (!) in Brest's 18-19 promotion season when he worked under Jean-Marc Furlan (see above) and won the golden boot award with a whopping 27 goals (four teams scored just 30 or fewer total !) . He played mainly from the bench last season in Ligue 1, but scored six goals and he could be revitalised back in the second tier and a 20 goal campaign in this team is far from impossible.
Charbonnier only played 30 minutes from the bench and actually alongside Sinayoko for most of that, which was a surprise of sorts.
Paris are a perfect 3/3 ,scoring 8 goals in winning all three starts, but after an opening day 4-0 victory at Grenoble, the last two have been closer, both by 2-1 scorelines, ahead of the sole home game they have played (Dunkerque) I wrote ..........
Massive statement of intent last week from PFC who won 4-0 (11-0 on target attempts !) at Grenoble, the team and venue at which they had lost in the playoffs just 10 weeks earlier. Ahead of that post season game I had written ..........
Grenoble get to host this playoff game by virtue of finishing 4th a point and place ahead of Paris FC. However, I feel it is PFC who are the better team and they have picked up six points more than their hosts since the end of February and but for a mid season dip, would surely have come close to an automatic promotion spot. Paris started the campaign 8-1-1 and were 7 points clear at the top of the table through 10 rounds, but lost their way, only to finish strongly and they were unbeaten in their last 7 away starts, conceding just 5 goals and they did not concede in the two league meetings with Grenoble, drawing 0-0 here and winning the home game 2-0 despite playing 20 + minutes with 10 men and scoring the second goal after the dismissal. Across the two games they allowed just 5 attempts ITB and only one on target and as both games came when PFC were probably not at their best, it feels like this is a great match up for them. I spoke about their potential in early season when we backed them a number of times and they are a team we tend to do really well with ........
Paris FC are quite ambitious , but could not replicate 2018-19's 4th place finish and were involved in a season long battle to avoid the drop, after falling out of the blocks through the early rounds. They will be keen to avoid a repeat and I spoke a lot about their numbers improving late last season and at both ends of the pitch, one game was away to Chambly where they won 2-1 and dominated statistically. PFC had a good finish to their campaign, losing just 2 of 9 and taking points from games with three top 6 teams in their last four starts, two of which were away from home, they were unbeaten in their last five on the road, scoring 9 goals.
What I find especially eye-catching in these financially troubled times is that they have been backed by the owners and received the biggest Ligue 2 budget increase this season , up more than 30% and giving them the 4th biggest in Ligue 2. They have cleared out a lot of "deadwood" and signed plenty of young talent, also joining is Gakpa Marvin who played a big role in Metz's 18-19 promotion winning team and made 13 appearances in Ligue 1 last season, he will add some experience to midfield. Likewise LB Florent Hanin (missing today) who played 42 games for Vitoria Guimaraes last season including 9 in the Europa League, they finished 7th in the Portugese top flight (with Hanin playing every minute of 25 games). Famous French head coach Rene Girard took charge in January and eight months might only be 10 games or so this year, but is a good time to work on things and a lengthy period to focus on what was needed.
They replaced Girard with Thierry Laurey,who has a phenomenal L2 record, earning promotion in his first seasons at both GFCA Ajaccio and Strasbourg, he has the third biggest budget in the second tier to work with and apparently no pressure, with a 2-3 year plan to get another Paris team in the top flight. I don't believe that, having come so close and with this perhaps the weakest L2 for a while, it has to be top 2 they are gunning for.
Dunkerque survived by just three points and are now in that always dangerous second season after promotion and look likely to struggle again with the joint smallest budget to work with. They opened with a 1-1 home draw with Quevilly , who have that similarly tiny budget, and neither team created much. This is a league where money often talks loudly and looking at the squads, it is easy to see where Paris' three times bigger budget has been spent.
Here we have two big Ligue 2 players, both of whom are unbeaten, under head coaches who know this league as well as anyone and with each able to go top of the table with all three points. However, like the Vegalta-Yokohama match on Saturday, I feel that both will have avoiding defeat as first priority and post lockdown, Ligue 2 games are producing draws at the rate of exactly 33.33% (139 from 417 games) and that alone makes any game between two evenly matched teams worth a look at these kind of quotes (circa 3.50) . In one like this, where it is also a result both teams could live with, it is a bit of a no brainer.
1.75 units draw 3.54 asian line.
Outright selection(s) :
The NFL pre-season started over the last weekend and the regular season gets underway on September 9th (three weeks on Thursday). We already have an outright Super Bowl selection at big odds , which was our first and so far only MAXIMUM bet for 2021 and at the time I posted it, I wrote ..............
..........since 2007 I have put up 13 outright Super Bowl selections on GOWI/Clubgowi (there were four years without a selection at all, a couple with two) and we have had winners @ 28-1, 25-1, 14-1 and 9-2 (5.50) and a losing finalist @ 14-1 who were and will always remain for me the moral winner and another runner up @ 16-1, so my track record is better than good.
In terms of long term bets, we have one other NFL suggestion from back at the start of the year and with regard to English football bets, Bournemouth for the Championship @ 11.0 (now trading at 9.0) and Brentford to finish in the top half of the table @ 10.0 and they are now down to a general 7.0 and as low as 3.75 (bit of an overreaction) in a couple of places !
I highlighted those as I have a League 1 outright selection for this week , my last four outright selections in this league have all won, three straight playoff winners and a team to make the top six @ odds of 6.0 and I expect this team to go really close at very decent odds.
I will send notes on them tomorrow morning.
However, there is one other League 1 team I want to get some notes on and there is time to do that this morning..........
Portsmouth:
Pompey were playing Premier league football as recently as 2010, but fell on very hard times in the interim, both in terms of league placing (three relegations in four years and four seasons in League 2) and financially (going into administration twice). They were saved from liquidation by the Pompey Supporters Trust and they eventually sold to an investment company owned by former Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Which has put the club on as secure footing as possible given COVID, but Eisner is not the kind of man to simply throw money at a project.
Portsmouth have finished 8-4-5-8 in their four League 1 campaigns and twice lost in the playoff semi finals and looked favourites to be promoted to the Championship in at least two of those seasons. However, things turned a little stale under head coach Kenny Jackett , his relationship with supporters turned sour , toxic even and in that regard, it was probably advantageous that there was no crowd at games. He was replaced late last season by Danny Cowley (the Cowley brothers as it really is) who enjoyed great success at Lincoln, less so at Huddersfield Town, but they did not inherit much there and had their hands tied to a degree.
Cowley was appointed on a permanent basis at the end of the season and was faced with the task of rebuilding, a lot of "name" players were allowed to leave and this was seen as a big negative in some areas of the media, but I am not so sure. Those players had their chance and had come up short, multiple times it could be argued. It allowed Cowley to bring in his own men and I am taken with the signings and the clear policy to sign players with experience of the level above and beyond...........
Ryan Tunnicliffe is only 28 yo, but has 256 Championship appearances to his name and has never played at a level as low as this previously, he has assisted all three goals that Pompey have scored so far and that from a defensive midfield position.
Shaun Williams has closing in on 400 starts in League 1 and the Championship ( almost 200 in each) and made 27 second tier starts last season for Millwall.
Clark Roberton has made 55 Championship starts, including 17 last season, it would have been more but his campaign was injury hit early.
Kieron Freeman has come in from Swansea, he was a stand out performer in Sheffield United's L1 promotion season with 10 goals and 6 assists from RWB.
Joe Morrell has also arrived like Tunnicliffe from Luton, he has made 19 appearances for Wales and played all four games at the Euros, he was in demand and turned down a bigger financial package from Ipswich Town to make the move. He has bought into what Cowley is trying to do and has respect for him, after playing for the head coach at Lincoln.
Gavin Bazunu is a 19 yo goalkeeper of immense promise who has signed a one year loan deal from Manchester City, he is already a full Irish international, was playing first team football at 16yo and has almost a full season at this level under his belt (Rochdale on loan ).
There have been several other additions, including youngster Gassan Ahadme from Norwich City, he scored a lot of goals in pre season and could be anything.
After winning their opening two games the mood is good and supporters said they saw more energy and a higher tempo on Saturday than in any game for two seasons. They might not have beaten much so far , but it sets the tone and Fratton Park will be close to capacity (18,000) from here on in and this is a very big club by L1 standards.
Portsmouth spent 157 days in the top six last season , almost twice as long as they did out of it and recorded the 4th longest time leading in games.
The top 9 teams in the xP table (2020-21), all had very close xGF of between 61-69 goals, including Portsmouth (63), difference maker was that the three promoted teams were amongst the four best in terms of xGA (43- 50 goal range) , Pompey gave up over 55 and this is an area where they can clearly improve . Cowley obviously noted that and he made the defence his immediate priority and will be delighted with back to back clean sheets to start the season. Speaking post Saturday he talked about another permanent signing and also having space for two more loanees, which he said he wanted to come from the Championship or PL.
This is arguably the toughest League 1 in a decade and some teams have spending big, but unlike the top two divisions (which we have discussed a lot), this is a league where experience is key and I think the teams who might really thrive are those with some old heads, but especially those who get it right defensively and I suspect that Pompey under the Cowley boys will tick both boxes.
Portsmouth are circa 9.0 to win League 1 and 3.75 to gain promotion and I think that both are ok, but they are my #2 selection and I will put up #1 tomorrow and I think that team offers fantastic value .
Good luck !
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