It has been a difficult season for football gambling fans

There is no doubt that as far as sports gambling is concerned in Ireland gambling on football comes second only to gambling on horse racing. It is also true that although many Irish football gambling fans do follow the Irish football leagues, in these times of massive television coverage it is the English Premier League which attracts the most attention. There are probably almost as many Manchester United and Liverpool supporters in Ireland as there are in England. This season in the Premiership many of the results in the first half of the season have not been as easy to forecast though, and football gambling fans have probably all had a few shocks. We can’t think of any football pundits who would have forecast that Leicester would be top of the league at Christmas, or that current champions Chelsea would be near the bottom. Chelsea’s problems have of course led to the sacking of Jose Mourinho, another scenario unlikely to have been forecast by many sports gambling fans interested in gambling on football. Some football gambling fans will now also be asking whether Manchester United will also be parting company with their manager sometime soon after an uninspiring start to the season and their elimination from the European Cup. There are one or two exceptions, but the tenure of Premiership football managers appears to be getting shorter and shorter every year, and we are rapidly approaching a situation where bookmakers may well be laying odds on who will be in charge of the top teams by the end of the season as well as who will be champions. There is clearly outstanding contender for the championship so far this season so football gambling fans have a wider choice of potential candidates to choose from, particularly in predicting who will qualify for Europe by finishing in the top four.