Premiership & Nationwide early pre-season odds

Wimbledon 22/1

Crystal Palace 22/1

Wimbledon will struggle big time IMHO next year (playing at hockey stadium in Milton Keynes? with no support) and I reckon Crystal Palace will make the playoffs.

Everton-Palace-Tranmere-Exeter = 3.5 million to one? That's worth 50p surely.

28/1 newcastle is ok

money to be had in the first div methinks, leicester will do solidly under mickey adams at 10/1 and stoke at 66/1?! have they not found a new manager yet? also plymouth and qpr are worth a shot.

re palace is a shambles, trevor francis is a terrible boss. will be sacked soon into season with team in relegation.

I'm a Bristol Rovers fan, and after our last-but-one showing last time, 12-1 is poor.

Jonesy: surely worth some kind of e/w or yankee?

Mr. Miller: I think the divisions in the League *are* more even than the Premiership, but there's also the issue of where the money is being laid... the ratio of sums bet on ManU:West Brom is going to be much higher than R&D:Torquay.

Sorry if that doesn't make sense.

With regard to the PLCs, such as Leeds, does this kind of lack of confidence spill over into lack of investor confidence, or vice versa, or are they entirely unconnected? Who invests in football clubs, apart from loonies?

It seems like only five minutes since Rushden and Diamond were playing Gresley Rovers, as featured in my dad's telephone monologues.

The only people who put money into football are supporters, for whom it's about owning a little piece of something you wuv.

I'm surprised the Cobblers aren't bottom of the pile to go down in Div 2. Dom right about the keeper, and we're about to be bought out by Arkan's best buddy and friend of Milosevic. Joy.

AFC Wimbledon to win the Combined Counties League would be a good one. Though a decent bookie will give short odds on it. And Wimblestein FC would be a good bet to go down - they'll be playing in front of three men and dog at a Hockey Stadium with one stand. They'll be re-arranging matches that clash with weddings at the Hockey Stadium (Kockpull hadn't thought of that aspect of the Hockey Stadium) and they got rid of their decent players at the fag end of last season. Big shame. Not.

Simply put, there exist within a football club other pressures that are not common to businesses. To analogise, if Safeway increase their market share in the course of a year, but are still behind, say, Tesco in overall share, shareholders would still expect a dividend payment. The Board would recommend a dividend that balanced prudent investment to maintain the upward trend, whilst still using the profits declared to reward investors.

At a football club, different pressures apply. Singer and Friedlander coined the concept of 'fan equity' in 1997 to characterise this difference. They noted that the stakeholders in football - the supporters - applied a pressure upon clubs-companies that did not exist in other environments. Should Arsenal finish second to Manchester United in the league, a pressure exists to reinvest any profit in strengthening the team to challenge for first position the following year. Indeed, in the USA where a field of economics concentrating on sports clubs has been in existence for much longer than the UK, analysis indicates that only one club can rely on declaring a profit each year, and that is the overall champions in that sport. All those who finish below them reinvest any surplus and do not declare a profit. They offer higher wages to star performers, and tempt others from rivals with attractive renumeration packages. In short, sports economics operate to the maxim 'second is nowhere'.

I WANT THIS!!

Tim, not sure about the fixtures thing but in the past the skysports one has been quite good, but I guess that is maoinly for the pemiership teams.

Since you're here DB, any news on the "Boston situation"? Wonder if it's possible to get a bookie to give you odds on Boston being relegated next season?

Having said that, none of the fixtures listed catch my eye particularly.

At least Pompey are tops at the mo in the first.

Whose next in line to be sacked for poor performance? Graham Taylor? Glenn Roeder?

PORTSMOUTH !