Flattered Stoke In For Rude Awakening

In our Burnley tip we discussed how newly promoted teams are often underestimated by the market and the same applies to Middlesbrough. They came through a tough Championship campaign to gain automatic promotion and have been granted a winnable opening match against Stoke.

Mark Hughes dragged his side to a ninth place finish last season but most of the time they were less than the sum of their parts. Arguably a top-half finish flattered a Stoke side with a -14 goal difference, only 14th best in the league.

This was mirrored by various expected goal models, with Paul Riley having them 17th in expected goal difference last season.

If your analysis is purely last season’s league table then you will overrate Stoke (and possibly underestimate Middlesbrough), therefore a home with is the play at 8/5 with Betfair Sportsbook.