When did winning everything become so straight-forward?

Our friends at spread betting firm IG Sport look at Manchester United’s attempts to get their hands on every trophy going…

“When I was a kid ‘the double’ was spoken about with a sense of awe and wonder.  Some folk even doubted it had ever really been achieved; it was the stuff of legend.  Then came the 1990s and teams started doing it for fun, with the double achieved four times in the last six years of the 20th century. Then came the treble and now, well now the Holy Grail has become the quadruple, although there’s a fairly exclusive potential guest list for that one this season.

Manchester United’s next step on their way to the footballing nirvana comes this weekend against Fulham in the FA Cup.  IG Sport are offering an 80 index on that competition which awards 80 to the winner, 60 to the runner-up, 40 to the losing semi-finalists and 20 to the losing quarter-finalists.  United are priced at 53-56 with Chelsea slightly lower at 51-54 and Arsenal 42-45.

Posted: March 5th, 2009 by Michael Lintorn | Add Comment

Spread betting prices show Aston Villa are closing the gap

IG Sport preview the battle for third between Villa and Chelsea

Every week our friends at spread betting firm IG Sport kindly preview a major sporting event. This week they explain the markets for Aston Villa and Chelsea and how the prices emphasise the progress Martin O’Neill’s side have made this season:

“Sir Alex Ferguson has been stirring things again this week, playing the kind of mind games which have kept him at the top of the tree for so long, dismissing Chelsea’s Premier League challenge, while saying he’ll keep a ‘wary eye’ on Aston Villa. It may be rhetoric coming from big SAF but look no further that IG Sport’s supremacy quote to see how much the gap between the two has close. The firm make Chelsea just 0.1-0.3 goal favourites for the match, the lowest supremacy quote they have put up on Premier League matches between these two in six years.  At this rate the next time Martin O’Neill’s side face Chelsea at Villa Park they will start as favourites!”

Click here for a detailed description of how spread betting works

Posted: February 19th, 2009 by Michael Lintorn | Add Comment

England need to slay the Dragons again in the rugby

Spread betting firm IG Sport preview the big Six Nations clash

England travel to the Millennium Stadium this weekend for a Valentine’s Day encounter with last year’s Grand Slam winners Wales. Here’s what our friends at IG Sport had to say about proceedings:

“Dragon slaying used to be easy for the English.  Back in the day all you needed was a lance, a stead and to have been canonized.  Things have got tougher since then!  Even the most diehard England rugby union fan could take little out of the Bergamasco fiasco last Saturday which produced a victory scoreline for England more flattering than a hippo, entering a ‘cutest smile’ competition for which the late replacement judge is a walrus and the work experience journalist covering the story just happens to be a mole!  A truer gauge of how far England have come (or indeed regressed) under Martin Johnson will come against Wales in Cardiff this weekend.  The Welsh are 9-12 point favourites on IG Sport’s supremacy line, a quote justified by their performance (for 60 minutes at least) against Scotland at the weekend.  The legend lives on, but in the real life, sometimes the dragon wins.”

Click here for a detailed description of how spread betting works

Posted: February 12th, 2009 by Michael Lintorn | Add Comment

IG Sport are unconvinced by Ireland’s Six Nations charge

chickendinner’s favourite spread betting firm preview the rugby

Photo Credit: David Davies, PA Wire

Our buddies at IG Sport are here again to preview the spread betting markets for the Six Nations, which kicks off this weekend:

Since 1948 the trophy cabinets and success annuals of Northern European sport have burgeoned significantly.  Scotland have become World Elephant polo Champions, the Welsh have reached a football World Cup quarter-final, the French have won the World scrabble Championship over 20 times, an Englishman (albeit with a Canadian accent) has reached a tennis Grand Slam final and Italy have won over a dozen Olympic fencing gold medals.  In that time too Ireland have beaten Pakistan at cricket and an Irishman has won the Tour De France, what the Irish haven’t done since 1948 however is win a Six Nations Grand Slam! Indeed the Irish have failed to land the Six Nations once since 1985.

Posted: February 6th, 2009 by Michael Lintorn | Add Comment

A spread betting preview of Merseyside derby number two

Our friends at IG Sport take us through all the spread markets

chickendinner’s favourite spreading betting firm IG Sport are here to explain the markets for this weekend’s FA Cup fourth round Merseyside derby as well as offering their theory as to why Liverpool’s strong start has set them up for a fall:

Although the actual theory of relativity is widely attributed to one Albert Einstein, much credence is given to a parallel theory, the roots of which can be found deeply ingrained in football.  Its actually more the theory of ‘expectation being relative to achievement’.  The theory goes something like this: If at the start of the season you’d have offered any Liverpool fan second spot in the Premiership, level on points with Manchester United going into the final week of January; never mind your hand, they’d have bitten your arm, your shoulder and if it got in the was, possibly your ear off.  If however you give them the same scenario after spending most of the season thus far at the top of the Premiership tree and on the back of draws against Stoke and Everton, a court case hanging over Steven Gerrard and a manager making the wrong kind of noises; then your finger-nails wouldn’t even be nibbled at!

Posted: January 23rd, 2009 by Michael Lintorn | Add Comment

A spread betting preview of tonight’s Merseyside derby

Our friends at IG Sport take us through tonight’s spread markets

chickendinner’s favourite spread betting firm IG Sport are here to preview the spread betting opportunities for tonight’s Merseyside derby.:

What do the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and 80’s band Starship have in common?  Amazingly three things, two of which give them World notoriety!  Firstly they both form a part of the World’s most tenuous link, secondly between them they recorded two of the World’s worst songs and thirdly and most amazingly both were number one in the pop charts the last time Liverpool (in the case of the former) and Everton (in the case of the latter) were the number one football teams in the country.

Posted: January 19th, 2009 by Michael Lintorn | Add Comment