Marta Vance

I'm Marta Vance, and for the last couple of years most of my football betting work has gone into one fairly niche corner of the game, almost literally: corner markets. I never had the urge to chase every league or dabble in every market going. I'd much rather know a handful of competitions properly than fake my way through the lot, and corners are the area where doing the homework genuinely seems to pay.

Corners drew me in because they tie back to things you can actually study. How wide a side plays, whether they sit in a low block and invite pressure, what kind of full-backs are on the pitch, who's taking set pieces, the conditions, even who's been handed the whistle, it all stacks up. A team that crosses early and often will rack up a very different count from one that patiently works central overloads, and the market doesn't always price that difference cleanly. Before I commit to anything I'll go through the likely lineups, recent corner counts on both sides, and the referee's tendencies, because some let play run and others stop everything. It's a market that rewards patience over instinct, and I've still had plenty of weekends where all the prep amounted to nothing.

When I write a piece up for Fixed Bet Tips, I'd rather walk through the thinking than just post a number and leave it there. People deserve to see why a bet looks tempting and, just as importantly, where it could come unstuck. Nothing in betting is guaranteed, and anyone claiming otherwise has something to flog. My aim is to give readers something worth chewing over before they commit anything to a slip.