It’s been a long wait, but the Premier League finally kicks off this weekend. There are a number of good games on Saturday, but the two ties which will make spread betting punters’ mouths water are Man United v Newcastle and Chelsea v Portsmouth on Sunday.

Sellers of United supremacy at 1.4 and sellers of total goals at around 2.4 will be hoping for a repeat of last year’s opening goalless draw at home against Reading. However, buyers will take great heart from the fact that that game was the first time in nine years since United had failed to win their opening home fixture. Leicester were the last team to hold them in the first game at home in 1998. United buyers will be further buoyed by the Reading game being only the second time in 16 Premier League campaigns that the defending Champions didn’t earn maximum points from the opening fixture.
 
Those spread punters looking to get with Newcastle on the supremacy market will be very concerned that they have lost 12 of the past 14 league games against United - last tasting victory way back in 2001. They have also had a terrible run against Big Four sides in the past few years and sellers of United supremacy will be alarmed that the Geordies have picked up only one point against the Premier League’s elite in the past four seasons. United buyers, on the other hand, will be encouraged that their side enter the 2008/09 season having just registered their best ever home season in the Premier League (taking maximum points in 17 of their 19 games). The signs for other non-Big Four teams at Old Trafford this season don’t look good, as the Red Devils have only dropped points in four out of 31 games there in the last two campaigns.

Many punters will see this game as the ideal game to have a spread bet, purely on the basis of the two results last season – in which the Sporting Index traders took an absolute hammering. Total goals buyers were in dream land as the Reds hammered the Magpies 6-0 on home turf in January, before demolishing them 5-1 at St James’s just over a month later. There have been some epic encounters between these two over the years and it is astonishing that in just the past 18 league games between the two, three have had 6 goals, one has seen 7 goals and two have seen 8 (both in the 2002/2003 season). Goals buyers have further reason for celebration as opening day fixtures regularly see more goals than normal. In the past eight seasons, 56% of games have seen more than 2.5 goals, whilst in six of those past eight campaigns, the total average of the opening day fixtures produced more goals than the last day of the season – an average of 2.8 goals per game. Sellers of the time of the first Newcastle goal will be greatly concerned that the Magpies have only scored once in their last five trips to the Theatre of Dreams.

Looking at the other end of the table and after Derby’s disastrous performance last year, there will be plenty of spread betting sellers looking to get their teeth into Hull, Stoke and West Brom’s season points tally. Sporting Index look as if they expect all three newly promoted sides to go back down at the first time of asking (Hull’s spread: 27-28.5. Stoke’s 27.5-29 and the Baggies 35-36.5). However, this has only ever happened once in the Premier League era (in 1997/98 with Bolton, Barnsley and Crystal Palace), which may make buyers sit up and take notice. Buyers of West Brom on the spreads will be pleased, if not unsurprised, to hear that Champions have the best record when it comes to Premier League survival; with just six of the past 16 going down. Just over half of the last 15 runners-up have stayed up the following season, which will give hope to Stoke buyers, whilst 63% of the play off winners have gone back down which may be ominous to those buying Hull’s season points.