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Next Newcastle United Manager – ‘Exclusives’ are just absolute embarrassments

2 years ago
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A lot of ‘exclusives’ about the identity of the next Newcastle United Manager.

Three weeks in(to the new ownership) era and they make fascinating reading.

In the last forty eight hours, I have read half a dozen of these ‘exclusives’ all revealing who is going to be the next Newcastle United Manager.

All of these ‘exclusives’ detailing who that incoming Newcastle United Manager is going to be, which players he will be targeting to bring in during the January transfer window and beyond, why he has been chosen by the new NUFC owners and so on.

There is only one problem.

Each of these six ‘exclusives’ named a different person.

So I can now ‘exclusively’ reveal that Newcastle United are going from having no manager (Head Coach Steve Bruce…) to having SIX managers.

Well, I can also ‘exclusively’ reveal that we will need a bigger home dugout at St James Park to accommodate them all.

The truth of course (not something you often associate with the vast majority of the media covering Newcastle United) is that none of them know anything.

Well, if you were really really generous you could say one of the next Newcastle United Manager ‘exclusives’ might contain some truth because surely at least one of them must get (guess???) it right – but I think we all know that these stories are just plain invention.

None of them know anything.

Two weeks ago I also wrote about how the media were covering the topic of who was allegedly going to the next Newcastle United Manager.

I pointed out how one of the most embarrassing ruses used by journalists was to make an entire story up, that was then only based on a reference to a move in the betting markets on who the next NUFC boss was going to be.

They will talk about ‘tumbling odds’ and it might be something like one of the potential candidates having his odds cut from say 8/1 to 4/1 by a particular bookie.

To sum up how ridiculous the whole thing was, of journalists claiming a big story based only on nonsense changes in odds, I pointed out that in that first week after the takeover, each day there has been pretty much a different favourite, as bookies moved the possibilities up and down their markets.

The thing is, when it comes to something like the next Newcastle United Manager betting market, you have to understand what the bookies are up to with these odds.

With say a horse race, punters can put on as much cash as they want with any bookie, within reason.

With next manager markets, or where a player is going to next, it is different.

The difference is because whilst nobody knows for absolute sure which horse is going to win any race, it is of course possible for somebody to know, for sure, who is going to be the next Newcastle United Manager. Or which club a player is going to head to.

So whilst bookies will happily take hundreds of pounds from you on pretty much any race / horse, indeed thousands of pounds if it is a major race, tens or hundreds of thousands off high rollers on the really top races like say the Derby.

It is doubtful now whether you could even place as much as £100 on a next Newcastle United Manager bet at certainly most bookies, indeed you would probably be limited to far less at the majority.

So why do bookies bother with these markets?

Well, bookies also love free publicity and whilst not a lot of people bet on these kind of things, or not a lot of money anyway, football fans LOVE talking about it and the changing odds etc.

When the favourite kept changing that first week after takeover, it is very very unlikely this has been down to purely money going on a certain potential manager. Instead, bookies will keep moving prices up and down to make a new story. They will then send that story around the media and BINGO! Next thing you have numerous newspapers and other medias saying the odds have ‘tumbled’ on whoever.

The only time you really should take notice of the odds is when somebody ends up going  massive odds on and even then there might be no substance in it happening. Certainly, if say a potential manager goes from 6/1 to 3/1 or maybe 4/1 to 2/1, it is all meaningless. It isn’t like normal betting markets on horses etc, where the amount of money placed on each horse, will continually be by far the biggest factor in terms of what odds are offered.

As an example of just how little the bookies (and journalists and punters) know and how little the odds are due to people betting most of the time with these bets, I have looked at the various bookies (8am on Wednesday 27 October 2021) and what odds are being offered on the next Newcastle United Manager market. These are the extremes offered at the various bookies, the lowest and highest odds offered currently:

Paulo Fonsca 6/5 to 5/2

Lucien Favre 2/1 to 4/1

Roberto Martinez 7/2 to 16/1

Frank Lampard 7/1 to 14/1

Steven Gerrard 7/1 to 20/1

Eddie Howe 11/1 to 20/1

Erik ten Hag 12/1 to 20/1

Unai Emery 12/1 to 25/1

Antonio Conte 14/1 to 66/1

Brendan Rodgers 22/1 to 50/1

So on pretty much every ‘runner’ for the NUFC job, you can get twice the odds or better at the bookie offering the biggest odds on that person, compared to the one offering the lowest.

Needless to say, you just wouldn’t get this happening on any usual betting markets, whether horseracing or whatever, including the actual outcomes of football matches and entire football competitions (league / cup winners).

As you can see, even Paulo Fonseca (who wasn’t even in the betting in the first week after takeover!) is now priced at anything from 6/5 to 5/2. At odds of 5/2 that equates to a 28% chance of getting the job, yet so many journalists have written entire stories basically talking about how Fonseca has already got the job and this is what he is going to do, which players he will go for etc etc. Maybe he will get the job BUT none of these journalists claiming to have inside information and sources…don’t know anything for sure.

Indeed, most of them don’t know anything at all…

So when you see that next ‘exclusive’ (you won’t have to wait for long!) on the next Newcastle United Manager, please check the small print.

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