Trendspotting In Europe

With ten games gone in quite a few competitions across Europe, it's worth taking a look at how things are panning out in some of them in order to see if there any any trends developing that might be worth exploiting. To keep my workload down, in the long term I might limit myself to countries that where I've had holidays.

Belgium:

Massive improvement from unbeaten leaders Genk has given them a five point lead over Anderlecht. At the bottom AS Eupen have lost nine of their first ten games and should probably be opposed each time they play: their next game is at home to St. Truiden on 16th October.

Genk have won the title before, but the winner of the 2010/11 edition of the competition will still probably be either Anderlecht or Club Brugge, although the playoff format adopted in Belgium sometimes throws up unexpected winners. In that case, Gent can't be totally ruled out either.

Holiday report: went to Bruges a few years ago, not really a great deal to do apart from sample the fantastic range of beer and chocolate and go on boat trips, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The battlefield tour in and around Ypres puts a lot of things into perspective.

Croatia:

Dinamo Zagreb, Hajduk Split and newly promoted RNK Split have all started well, at the bottom Hrvatski Dragovoljac and Istra 1961 look vulnerable already: Hrvatski were promoted last season and might not be up to the challenge. This competition has been dominated by Dinamo Zagreb (ten wins since 1992 and five consecutive wins) then if you can still get a decent price for them it's worth taking. Hajduk Split (the only club from outside Zagreb to win the title since the war finished) are also contenders. Bit of a health warning with Croatian football though: there have been some dodgy dealings in the past although a series of high profile stings may have put paid to that.

Holiday report: stayed on the Adriatic coast north of Split for a fortnight, not many Brits there but I was told how well I spoke English(!) which is spoken pretty widely, mainly because people from all over Europe go there. The locals seem to worship Italians and if you're a fan of meat and potatoes you can't go wrong with the food; beer and wine is good quality and cheap.

There are a number of European leagues that are currently featuring over 3.5 goals per game. For the sake of brevity, I'll just list the major ones but I'll be coming back to Portugal and Greece in the following weeks:

Swiss Super League (ten games gone, some teams have played eleven)

No real surprise here as this competition and the Austrian Bundesliga normally feature tons of goals. Of the ten teams in the competition, only Young Boys are currently averaging less than 2.5 per game. Leaders Luzern are averaging exactly four goals per game at the moment: their next game is 22nd October at Neuchatel Xamax which looks as if it should be over 3.5 but more of that game nearer the time.

Bundesliga 1 (seven games gone)

Surprisingly, Bayern Munich are having problems hitting the net.

Dutch Eredivisie (eight games gone)

Only two teams under 2.5 goals per game

If you don't want to see goals, try the following competitions:

Polish Extraklasa (eight games in) - Arka Gdynia are the main culprits

Portuguese Super League (seven games) - very goal shy competition

Greece 1 (five games) - particularly Aris and Larissa

Serbia Super Liga (seven games) - an incredible 1.56 GPG at the moment!