FI Weekly Mag Issue 007 - 17/06/19

Issue 7 17/06/19

Weekly Magazine Unofficial Weekly Magazine for Football Index Traders

Defense for Ole Some major rebuilding is needed at Old Trafford this summer if Solskjaer is to get Manchester United competing once again, starting at the heart of the defence...

The 27th of December 2017 might not mean much more than the Christmas holidays for most people, but in Liverpool’s history it could turn out to be one of the most significant. For this was the day that the club broke the world record transfer fee for a defender: £75m on Virgil van Dijk (£3.00).

Defenders don’t always get their fair share of credit, with praise and awards continuously aimed at those coveted stars who score the goals as opposed to stopping them. Yet the Dutchman’s arrival at Anfield has been a turning point for the club, reaching successive Champions League finals as well as 97 points in the league (pipped to the title only by arguably the greatest Premier League

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hatred, Manchester United fans must surely look on with begrudging admiration, resentfully and jealously wishing their defence looked better than, with all due respect, Phil Jones (£0.30) Maguire Current Price and Chris Smalling team (£0.26). £2.04 of all It’s not as though time). Such the club lack the has been his impact, money: they’ve had talk is snowballing that van Dijk one of the highest transfer could - deservedly - become outlays in recent seasons. only the fourth defender to Yet the failure to address be named the world’s best the problems in their back player. line has contributed to their He is not the sole reason recent struggles, now looking behind Liverpool’s recent a million miles off their rivals. success, yet he is certainly a As anticipated, a new case study into the importance central defender seems to be of solid defenders. Fans will their number one target this always remember the goals summer, yet such recruitment scored by successful teams, hasn’t been straightforward. yet those teams are always Harry Maguire has been built on a solid defence. As the courted since last summer’s late, great Bobby Moore once World Cup heroics, though said: ‘If you don’t concede any a fee in the region of £80m goals, you’ll win more games is proving difficult to justify. A than you lose.’ player who could seemingly Liverpool’s fierce rivals across justify that price tag based the M6 could certainly learn on both his current and from them. However strong the potential ability would be in-

Bad Week

Chelsea: First, the worst kept secret in football came out with talisman Hazard’s move. With the manager now gone too, and a summer transfer embargo, Chelsea could be in for a tough season next year.

demand wonderkid Matthijs de Ligt (£3.09), though it is unlikely he would choose the Red Devils over Barcelona or Paris Saint-Germain who look in pole position; a sorry state of United’s falling stature in recent years.

There is no smoke without fire, and it would almost be surprising to see Maguire still at Leicester come the end of the transfer window, but there could yet be a curve ball in this unwinding transfer saga. This week, the club have seemingly turned their attentions to West Ham’s Issa Diop. With previous manager Jose Mourinho praising the 22 year old as ‘a monster who dominated everything in the duels’, Diop has show fantastic promise in adapting to the Premier League, and would be available for far cheaper with a rumoured £45m bid set to be tabled.

Manchester United currently look lost as a team; confused by the transition under Ole Gunnar Solksjaer. After such a dominating start to his tenure, the season fizzled out with an underwhelming end. There is a lot of work to do to get the club competing for titles

Good Week

Daniel James: Good week?

Good year. At the start of last season, James hadn’t even made a career league appearance. Fast forward a year later and he’s signing for Manchester United.

again, and be it Maguire, de Ligt, Diop or someone else, the rebuilding job will be a long and arduous task.

It’s not all doom and gloom for United, however. It looks as though the club are ready to press ahead with the signing of Aaron Wan-Bissaka (£2.32), who has enjoyed an excellent breakthrough season at Crystal Palace, in an attempt to address all areas of their defensive unit. Meanwhile, Luke Shaw (£0.73) is still young enough to near the levels once expected of him.

It’s certainly the early stages, but these foundations will be vital in making United great once again.

Diop

Dividend Winners 10/05 - 16/06

10/06/19 5 x Media Day Media Buzz (First to Fifth) 1090 Cristiano Ronaldo 800 Matthijs de Ligt 600 Virgil van Dijk 400 Eden Hazard 360 Gareth Bale

14/06/19 5 x Media Day Media Buzz (First to Fifth) 610 Harry Maguire 450 Eden Hazard 240 Raheem Sterling 240 Matthijs de Ligt Aaron Wan-Bissaka 220

11/06/19 5 x Media Day Media Buzz (First to Fifth) 830 Paul Pogba 620 Matthijs de Ligt Aaron Wan-Bissaka 530 460 Cristiano Ronaldo 440 Neymar

15/06/19 5 x Media Day Media Buzz (First to Fifth) 450 Paul Pogba 380 Philippe Coutinho Lionel Messi 340 340 Ryan Fraser 220 Youri Tielemans

12/06/19 5 x Media Day Media Buzz (First to Fifth) 1000 Daniel James 590 Matthijs de Ligt 500 Cristiano Ronaldo 500 Romelu Lukaku 440 Yannick Carrasco

16/06/19 5 x Media Day Media Buzz (First to Fifth) 1440 Sergio Ramos 1190 Paul Pogba 260 Lionel Messi 240 Neymar 180 Harry Maguire

13/06/19 5 x Media Day Media Buzz (First to Fifth) Eden Hazard 1040 Gareth Bale 360 Paul Pogba 320 Romelu Lukaku 300 Nabil Fekir 280

This Week 5 x Media all week ALL SUMMER!

Current Price

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Footie: 97,918

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Football Index Guru Football Index Guru has been on Football Index since May 2018 and has a 67% ROI. You can read his blog at footballindexguru.wordpress. com and follow him on Twitter @IndexGuru Best Buy: Without a doubt the main man Paul Pogba. Even with the negativity that surrounded him this week he has by far been my greatest buy. I remember it was around this time last year when I had sold up all of my shares in Pogba but thought there was only one way which he was going with the World Cup coming up. In this year his price has risen by £4.94 (240%) and returned £1.88 in dividends (all post share split). Seems like that one went well to me.

Worst Buy: I sold Kylian Mbappe 2 days before the World Cup when he went down injured taking a 2% profit. He’s is up nearly 300% since then.

Biggest Regret: Jumping on Sergio Ramos at his peak. I thought the fact that he was the Real Madrid penalty taker and had already scored in consecutive games along with defenders booming ,would be a recipe for success; but that bubble definitely burst!

Best Tip: A lot of talk has been coming up about what will happen with Chelsea next season with Sarri having left for Juventus and the transfer ban still likely to be enforced. Following the Europa League Final I liked the look of Willian. I picked him up for 72p and this seems like a bargain compared to other top 6 attackers, especially with Eden Hazard on his way to the Bernabeu. Chelsea also have Champions League next season and Willian picked up 2 scores greater than 200 winning 12p in PB dividends.

Best Piece of Advice: Have a diverse portfolio and have reasons to be confident in your purchases. By being diverse you may not ultimately maximise your profit but you do protect yourself from movements in the market. By having a reason for your purchase you have done enough research to know why you are buying the player and when looking to sell you can match the players’ current position to your original reasons and decide from there whether to sell or de-risk.

Football Index Guru will feature in a guest column over the course of this summer! See the next page for part one of his first excellent article.

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Football Index Guru

Guest Blog

Football Index Guru has been on Football Index since May 2018 and has a 67% ROI. Over the course of the summer, he will feature in a weekly guest blog. You can follow him on Twitter @IndexGuru.

Last summer we saw Football Index implement their first dividends for Performance Buzz in an international tournament during the World Cup in Russia. With the focus of the platform on football in Europe we are likely to see FI implement buzz on the platform for the European Championships next summer. Last weekend there were 2 rounds of Euro qualifiers which have left a lot of teams having completed half of their qualifying fixtures.

With many traders buying well in advance we thought we would look at which teams are in the best position to qualify for the tournament next summer.

Group A: When England were drawn in Group A they would have been confident with the toughest tests likely to come from the Czech Republic. While some teams have played 4 games, England sit top despite having only played (and won) two, due to their Nations League participation. They have already secured a Euros playoff - along with Kosovo - by winning their NL group, but look to be dominating this group with 5-1 and 5-0 wins leaving what seems to be Czech Republic and Kosovo to fight over the last automatic spot. Marcus Rashford (£3.97) scored England’s only goal in the NL Finals and has scored 7 goals in his 32 appearances for his country. With another year’s experience he could become a crucial part of the England squad in the Euros.

Group B: While the Euro 2016 Champions were off winning the inaugural UEFA Nations League their qualification for Euro 2020 is not in the most comfortable of positions with only 2 points after 2 games. As with England they have secured a playoff along with Ukraine and Serbia but will have to have some strong results to ensure automatic qualification. In this international break Ukraine took control of the group beating Serbia emphatically 5-0 but Serbia have kept themselves in contention with a strong 4-1 win over Lithuania. Schalke winger Yevhen Konoplyanka (£0.32) scored 2 goals in the Ukrainian 5-0 win, adding to his previous 25 international goals, and could be a key part in making it to the Euros for the third European Championship in row.

Group C: The only group with 2 teams on the maximum number of points from their opening games.

Northern Ireland have done well to beat Belarus and Estonia twice but have by far the biggest challenges yet to come in double headers with Germany and the Netherlands. The Germans have a key grip on the group having already beaten the Dutch who will be coming back from the Nations League with their guaranteed playoff spot looking to do one better and secure automatic qualification. Northern Ireland need to gain some points from their remaining games and hope that the Dutch slip up elsewhere. Germany emphatically beat Estonia 8-0 so are looking firmly placed to qualify. German forward Marco Reus (£0.89) scored twice against Estonia to bring his international total to 13.

Group D: Other than England the home nation looking in the best position to qualify so far is the Republic of Ireland. Crucial upcoming games with Switzerland in the Autumn will decide their fate following a strong 1-1 draw with Denmark who, along with the Swiss and Georgians, have already bagged a playoff spot through the UEFA Nations League. Shane Duffy (£0.32) bagged the crucial 85th minute equaliser and could be exciting for next summer’s tournament with 3 goals in his 29 international appearances; a strong record for an international defender.

Group E: Group E looked to be drawn to give the World Cup finalists Croatia quite a favourable opportunity but an upset against Hungary in March has left them among the pack.

They did however pick up a 2-1 victory against Wales who have struggled thus far. Ivan Perisic (£0.72) scored the decisive goal and if they do qualify, he will be a key part of a strong attack.

None of the nations in this group won their Nations League groups and therefore there are only 2 teams guaranteed to go past this qualification stage.

Catch part 2 of Football Index Guru’s Euro 2020 round-up next week in Issue 8!