Chelsea FC will be making the trip to Villa Park on Saturday for their eighth Premier League fixture against Aston Villa.

The blues are coming off of a colossal 2-0 victory over Arsenal last weekend and will be eager to extend their points tally. Although they’re eight points clear of Aston Villa, Manchester City are nipping at their heels with just four points separating the two sides.

Aston Villa are currently in eighth place with ten points, which means that these three points are extremely valuable to them and could boost morale significantly if obtained. Players to keep an eye on up front are John Carew and Emile Heskey.

This match is sure to be entertaining because although it is still fairly early in the season, this is when teams set the tone for what is to come. Success usually doesn’t happen overnight. It takes dedication, which Chelsea have been displaying ten-fold recently. Villa is capable of a win but will have to put it all on the table and be firing on all cylinders.

Whether you bet football as a hobby or for a living, we all share one thing in common when we make up our mind to put our money down on a team – we want to win.
There is no 100% chance of winning a football bet at any given time (although it can come quite close with enough information) but there are certain traits to follow if you want football-betting to prove a profitable venture for yourself in the long run.
In other words, you might not always be able to win the battle, but you can definitely win the war.
These are the 5 traits of a highly successful football bettor…

1. Proper Planning

Planning usually takes the fun out of betting somewhat for most people but is an important component of long-term betting success.
Proper planning usually involves setting up a suitable betting bank and staking strategy. This aids in terms of discipline as having such a plan will make it easier not to make spur-of-the-moment decisions when it comes to amounts to stake.
A good staking strategy protects the betting bank while allowing for progressive increases in wager amounts when the betting fund grows.
Other useful factors to keep in mind when deciding on a suitable money management system would for example be, the targeted amount of winnings you would like to make by the end of the season, or each month. Knowing this will help you decide how aggressive you would want your plan to lean towards.
The logical thing to do when you have got your plan down pat is to stick to it always. This way, there are fewer surprises.

2. Courage

It takes a certain amount of courage to bet against what everyone else is betting on in football. When all your chums have their money on Chelsea, it is tough putting your money where your mouth is when it is Derby, even if the Asian Handicap is a 1.5 goal advantage.
And yet, you have to remember that this is exactly what the bookmakers are facing perennially. Ask yourself which is the party laughing all the way to the bank most times and you will find that it is more often than not, the bookies. The fact is, more than 95% of bettors lose in the long run.
Don’t be afraid to bet on the underdogs when your match analysis (or trusted tipster service) dictates so. There is a good chance you will win and the returns are always high when you do so.

3. Discipline

Without a doubt, the most important trait that a football-bettor can have.
Without discipline, a successful bettor can lose all his winnings in one day.
Without discipline, a losing bettor can run up huge debts that might prove life-ruining. In the long-run, you cannot win without discipline.
Discipline is essentially the will to remember how to control your betting patterns no matter how emotionally charged you are at the moment.
Challenges to discipline come in the form of:
– “Absolute certainty” that you will win a certain match which makes you feel like risking an entire season’s winnings on one match.
– Desperation from making too many losing bets and the hope that this last one will win and dig you out of all the problems you have gotten yourself into.
– Feeling invincible after making a few winning bets in succession. You just don’t believe you can lose and test this repeatedly with ever-increasing bets.
– Greed.
– Stupidity (often goes hand in hand with Greed).
You might be able to get away with not paying any heed to discipline and making a profit sometimes. But this only serves to reinforce these bad habits with probably more dire consequences to come in the future.
You can instill self-discipline by following the other traits here which follow:

4. Diligence

Always make a thorough analysis of match factors before placing your wager on a team. As it is, most people already do not have access to enough information for matches unless they have intimate connections with insiders like managers, players, club officials, etc.
Although the internet has leveled the playing field a little for football-bettors, there is still a vast difference between what a person with good connections has access to as compared with the kind of information one can find from other general sources. Hunches and intuition is well and good but in my betting career, I have not heard of anyone who has lasted long by making his bets based on hunches in the long run.
Match analysis is something that can be mastered with deep thought and enough practice. However, a common mistake is made when some bettors place successively winning bets. They tend to cut short the analysis process and base their selections on progressively less research/factors. Such an attitude limits true potential too wastefully.
If you are not one with an aptitude for match analysis, the very least you can do is to make sure you subscribe to a sports advisory service with a good record. Do some research on the internet and subscribe to a few reputable services for a couple of months to find the best one or two services.

5. Patience

Patience is purely a matter of the mind. If you’ve got the other traits mentioned above, it shouldn’t matter to you whether or not you bet the next game since there is always another one round the corner. If one is able to quantify patience, there would be a direct correlation between patience and profits and an inverse one with risk.
Patience aids discipline. Patience reminds you that you do not have to win all the money at once. There is always the next match, the next day and the next season. Understanding this prevents unnecessary risk and protects the betting bank.