GEORGE ELEK: The EFL is back and you can get ahead of the trends with this goals-based double

The opening weekend of the English Football League is my favourite betting event of the season.

We have no recent form to steer us, no underlying numbers to inform which winning runs are sustainable and which aren’t, and these games are priced up weeks in advance of the first kick before an exchange market is even a speck on the horizon.

It’s a throwback to a simpler time, where betting was much more a game of who had a better eye rather than fighting the machine in a tussle where you either have to be very good or very lucky to win.

Opening day prices will mainly be driven by outright markets, with the leftovers of last season’s form still playing a part despite often being largely irrelevant if there has been a decent amount of churn at a club either on and off the field.

So the key to finding value therefore becomes spotting a trend before there is any way of it being factored into the price by evaluating summer activity, and I think there are two cracking goals options to exploit this Saturday.

As is the case with so many great opportunities, the first comes at Hull on Saturday. Liam Rosenior is out of the home dugout and Tim Walter is in, which looked harsh on the face of it but it turns out it was a stylistic issue rather than a performance based decision.

Hull’s Turkish owner Acun Ilıcalı was, to paraphrase, bored of watching the relatively pedestrian passing football that Rosenior was serving up. In an attempt to justify the journeys from Istanbul to Humberside he’s hired former Hamburger SV boss Walter, whose style of play has been labelled ‘heart attack football,’ a moniker he has endorsed.

That he failed to win promotion from Bundesliga.2 on three occasions with a sizable budget clearly paled into insignificance when thrill-seeking Acun saw his team had  scored 202 goals and conceded 141 in 104 league games in charge, which works out at 3.3 goals per game in a large sample size.

Hull have lost some key attacking players in Fabio Carvalho and Jaden Philogene, but there is no doubt that Walter will bring this gung ho approach to the Tigers given it’s the very reason he’s been hired.

Liam Manning’s sides are generally electric in transition, so Bristol City should enjoy themselves against a team who seemingly don’t believe in defensive shape. For unders to be favourite here looks well off and, I reckon, getting anything like the 21/20 for Over 2.5 goals in Hull games this season will soon be a distant memory.

Brand new Burton

It’s a similar story at Burton Albion, with the club changing beyond recognition since we last saw them squeak clear of the drop in May. Since then they now have new owners, a new manager and pretty much a totally new set of players recruited both across the EFL and in Europe.

It’s almost impossible to assess the strength of their squad and how they will fare but, like Hull, I think we can be pretty confident that they will be an attacking side whose games will see plenty of goalmouth action.

Their new manager is Mark Robinson, who joins from the Chelsea academy having previously been Head Coach at AFC Wimbledon, where he implemented an exciting and attacking brand of football with an onus on developing young talent.

They were eventually relegated, conceding 62 goals in the 39 games that Robinson was in charge of that season.

With a massive churn of players and a concerted effort to bring in technical players such as Billy Bodin and Elliott Watt, it’s relatively clear that this will be the approach again.

The Brewers have brought in 20 new players over the summer, and it is some task for Robinson to have them organised and playing this swashbuckling style so quickly. We can expect some teething issues, and in Michael Skubala’s Lincoln they’ll face a ruthless opposition who at one point racked up 16 goals in three matches last season.

The new Burton owners want to excite their fanbase, and I think The Pirelli Stadium will become a regular haunt for those looking to back overs this season, so the 11/10 looks one of those prices that doesn’t quite factor in the changes over the summer.

Selections:

2pt Over 2.5 goals in Hull v Bristol City 21/20

1pt Over 2.5 goals in Burton v Lincoln 11/10

0.5 pt double