With the Premier League concluding its 2022/23 season today, I can finally share the results of the season handicap wagers I placed last summer.
Season handicap wagers, and the posts I write about them in, are an annual tradition on this very blog. Each year, once the domestic leagues have ended, I go back to see where I went right... but mainly wrong.
Here's how this year's punts went starting with League 2 and working down (or should that be up?) to today's finale in the EPL.
New visitor? I recommend reading this post from July 20 2022 before you proceed
League 2
My predicted handicap table had Stockport County (0), Bradford (2), Salford City (3) and Mansfield Town (5) as the top four teams. I didn't like taking the zero points with Stockport, so chose to go for the three points with Salford.
Salford picked up a total of seventy-five actual points in their 2022/23 campaign. Add on top the three and they closed out the season handicap table in ninth place with 78.
It obviously wasn't good enough.
Stevenage, who had a 19-point head-start, topped the table with 104. They were followed by Leyton Orient (101 total points), Carlisle (95 total points) and Northampton (89 total points).
League 1
Just like with the League 2 predicted table, the one for League 1 projected Sheffield Wednesday to be at the top despite having a zero-point advantage. I didn't want to take a team getting zilch, so looked for one of the other three teams at the top of the table.
I opted to overlook Ipswich (2) and Peterborough (7) by selecting Portsmouth with a ten-point advantage.
It didn't pan out well. Portsmouth picked up seventy points in the league, so closed out the handicap table in thirteenth place with eighty points.
Had I decided to risk taking Sheffield Wednesday with the zero-point start, I would have cashed in on the each-way side of the bet because they finished fourth in the handicap table.
Championship
Despite choosing to avoid a team with zero points for Leagues One and Two, I went with Norwich (0 points) because the table projected they would close out the year with ninety-three points over Watford (2), West Bromwich Albion (4) and Middlesbrough (6).
The worst part about picking Norwich is the fact that they turned out to be the worst handicapped team in this division because they closed out the year right at the bottom with the sixty-two points.
Burnley finished the season as the winners in both the real and handicap tables. They had entered the 2022/23 season with an eight-point advantage and - with the 101 points accrued in real play - they closed out on 109 ahead of Sheffield United (97 points), Luton Town (94 points) and Sunderland (85 points)
Premier League
My spreadsheet projected that Newcastle United and Everton would have ninety points each when all was said and done in the 2022/23 season. The former was given a thirty-one point head-start and Everton had forty-four.
I chose Newcastle. It turns out it was the better choice of the two because Newcastle finished in joint-third place of the handicap table (they did well in the real league with a fourth place finish to secure Champions League football for the first time since the 2002/03 season). They had 102 points along with Fulham.
The winning team was Brentford. The team picked up 59 points to go along with their forty-six point head-start. The 105 was a point ahead of Arsenal.
I had a return of 48p from the Lucky 15 bet I placed on the four teams. That was a loss of £2.52.
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