FTL Weekend Update 23.4

The Premier League may be over already, (I preferred last season's finish), but the Friendly Tipster League continues to thrill and draw viewers from all over the world. Unfortunately, rather like the EPL, it doesn't look like the title will be decided on the final weekend of the season, as the top two categories maintain a commanding lead, and the Extended Draws would now be trading at 1.01 were there a market on the 'unique' Betfair Exchange.

The top three remain the same as last week. The Extended draws started the weekend with 2 winners from 2 on Friday and Saturday, but gave some profits back on Sunday with three losers. The Bundesliga wasn't good this weekend, with three losers, but the three Classic U1.5 selections did well with two winners - Sunderland 1-0 v Everton and Osasuna 0-0 v Real Sociedad.

Up to fourth go the Extended U2.5 selections, and the Bundesliga U 1.5 moved up to fifth with two of the three losers being 1-0 results.

The remaining profitable entries are:

Drawmaster found the Liverpool 2-2 Chelsea draw, while Premier Edge made a small profit. Backing Ian Erskine's Lay the Draw selection found one winner from four selections for a small profit, and thus 10 of the top 11 places are either draw selections, or derivative markets of draw selections. The BundesLAYga system had just one winner from four for a loss, and the profitable entries are, for the time being, rounded off by Premier Betting who show a small profit after 98 selections.

Into the red, and eight are down by less than 10 points.

Neil has had a poor five weeks (4 winners from the last 19 selections) after being in profit for most of the season, CKL has long since given up, as as Tony and his Tips. Having recovered to 0.00 in early March, the post-International break period hasn't been kind to Football Elite with just 4 winners from 19 selections.

Last, comes the real strugglers of the season. Little Al has been hanging in there, finding the odd high-priced draw, but not enough to be profitable - at least not yet. The Free Under / Over selections continue to flounder while Griff also threw in the towel weeks / months ago. Credit to Talkbet (Jon) for hanging in but with just 4 winners from the last 22, he's at the wrong end of the table, as are my Classic XX Draw selections. Last season these finished second (behind the Under 2.5 selections), but this season has been very disappointing. My decision to include the Extended and Bundesliga selections was one of my better ones! Two out of three Classic winners this weekend helped, but they are still a long way from green.

And finally there is Football Formbook, still trailing but profitable three of the last four weeks and one blinding week could make a big difference. I should mention that neither Football Formbook or Free Under / Over Picks asked to be included.

As the season winds down, the overall net total (excluding commission, taxes, charges etc.) is:

For those who want a reminder of how the 2011-12 season finished, here was the table last May:

Interesting how backing the 'lay The Draw' selection has proven to be anything but an aberration holding true (profitable) after 153 selections. With millions of followers desperate to lay at any price, perhaps it's not surprising that the value appears to be solidly on the back side - if you'll pardon the expression. Some of you may recall that backing this draw found just one winner in the opening 24 games of the season, and was down 19.7 points on November, but a run of ten draws from the next 16 selections turned the ship around and showed Ian was human after all. It should also be pointed out that Ian's selections are not intended to be layed and left, but layed with a view to trading out after a goal, although as most of you will know, there are one or two problems with this strategy (the 0-0, the 'dog scoring first, a quick equaliser etc.) and it's not that simple.