Mark Langdon's 2024-25 season predictions: It’s the hope that kills you – so adopting an objective ante-post view is wise

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Mark Langdon's 2024-25 season predictions

Hope is not a strategy but it is abundant among football fans at this stage of the summer.

Hopefully the new manager can work wonders where the past ten have failed; maybe the latest raft of new signings will be better than the last lot of duds; might this be the season when the wonderkid from the youth team actually turns out to be the real deal. 

You’ve watched the YouTube highlights and there can be no doubt that we are about to witness the arrival of a new Wayne Rooney. And the fact that you said the same thing exactly 12 months ago about the last teenage sensation whose name you now can’t remember doesn’t matter one jot.

There is nothing wrong with a new season, new hope mentality, but when looking to place an ante-post bet there is far more to be said for the consistency of teams who already have the foundations in place to mount a title push.

It’s not as sexy, but my former colleague Kevin Pullein once took a statistical look at where champions finished the season before they had won the league. I’m paraphrasing slightly here, but focusing on the top third from the previous campaign was the most profitable approach.

It’s not rocket science. The best teams who didn’t go up the season before should realistically be the starting point for any potential promotion protagonist. However, it rarely works out that way and bookmakers and punters alike will normally fall head over heels with a transfer splurge.

You did not need to go too far down the 2022-23 Premier League table to find last season’s winner as Manchester City (again) retained the title. In League One, fast-finishing Portsmouth made the jump from eighth to first while Stockport went from fourth to first in League Two.

Regular readers will know this is not after-timing as I tipped all three, which is not to recognise shrewdness but to highlight that this approach to ante-post betting is nothing new. 

Pullein was a punting mentor for me and many on the Racing Post sports desk, and his words of ante-post wisdom have always stuck with me.

The Championship is possibly moving further away from those previous norms as the disparity between the Premier League and second tier grows further with relegated pair Leicester and Southampton bouncing back at the first attempt.

But using underlying data it was possible to mark second-placed Ipswich down as a high-flying Championship side despite the fact they were in League One in 2022-23, and the leap was nowhere near as big as it looked on paper.

So, the easy aspect is narrowing the field. The hard bit is still finding the winners.

Doncaster stand out in League Two. They gained 46 points in 2024 – more than any other side in the division, including high-class pair Stockport and Wrexham – and manager Grant McCann is adamant the best way to go from playoff losers to promotion winners is by keeping the squad consistent. Maybe he is a Pullein follower, too. 

Birmingham are all the rage in League One but Bolton have finished ninth, fifth and third in the past three campaigns and their 87 points from last season sets a strong standard. Again, Wanderers have mainly kept the band together and that continuity can be rewarded.

Leeds amassed 90 points in the Championship last term and, despite losing a few players, they potentially won’t need to improve to go up. It could be argued they could drop their standards slightly and still justify favouritism.

The promotion treble will be my main bet at around 28-1, but I can’t resist the win aspect in excess of 500-1 which rises to 1,550-1 by adding in Arsenal to topple City.

Last season’s 2,000-1 tipped acca was beaten by a single point as Ipswich fell short of joining City, Portsmouth and Stockport as title winners, but it was a fun ride and it’s time to go again. 

After all, If you can’t have a bit of hope in August, when can you?

Where can I buy the Racing Post Big Kick-Off?

It has been a great summer of sport with the European Championships and the Olympics, but it's not finished just yet and The Big Kick-Off, our epic annual supplement that signals the return of domestic football, is out now!

We have every angle covered in our bumper 80-page betting guide to the 2024-25 football season. Our unrivalled coverage includes previews of every league in England, plus the elite divisions across Europe to make it the definitive resource for anyone looking to bet on the new football season as we go in-depth on the outright, relegation and top-goalscorer markets plus much more.

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