My July, 2016 interview with football trader, Daniel Hart
I'm Daniel Hart, 24, and I come from Liverpool in the UK. I'm currently a Mathematics student in my gap year, working as a football trader for a spread betting firm.
Q - Why and when did you first get interested in Thai football?
Not too long ago. I followed bits and pieces last season, but pretty heavily all of this season. My original goal was to build a model for pricing a minor football league. I saw there wasn't much work like this done at all for the smaller Asian leagues. I picked Thailand as I'm fairly familiar with all the different places, as I've been a couple of times before and planning another trip at the end of this year.
Q - What do you friends think of your interest in Thai football?
Naturally they think its very strange! But I've never really enjoyed mainstream standard football to be honest so it suits me.
Q - Have you found any other Thai football fans in your area?
Nope, just me! Although the girlfriend is forced to watch a few games every now and then.
Q- How do you keep up to date with what is happening in the PLT?
Have decent access to streams when the games are in-play, failing that the extended highlights on the #helloballthai Youtube channel, also have all the clubs facebook accounts and relevant twitter TPL news pages. Anything else I'll pester you guys in an email!
Q - Have you ever been to a match in Thailand?
Unfortunately not. Last time I was in Thailand it was in the off season, but I'm going back for 2 weeks towards the end of this year so looking forward to catching one of the final games of the season!
Q - Do you follow any particular team?
Not in particular, as I have to follow every team to keep all my ratings work up to date. If any though I think I'd say I have a soft spot for Pattaya, capable of upsetting any big team on their day and had a few decent winners on them!
Q - Who are your favourite players in the PLT?
Herberty was a personal favourite of mine and I was sad to see him leave. Even with all these big new signings this season I'd still rate him and Cleiton comfortably the best and both definitely would be the front two in my TPL XI.
Q - Is there anything you don't like about Thai football?
I suppose you get this to some extent in all leagues, but the turnover of managers in the Thai leagues is just borderline ridiculous. It's just standard variance for teams to go through good and dry spells and I think a lot of the time the players haven't even got chance to adapt to a different system and it only destabilizes the club further a lot of the time. I wish the club management would sometimes take more of a long term approach rather than panicking and attempting a short term fix.
Q - What do you think will happen with the title race?
Although only 3 points separate the teams in the actual league table as it stands I do actually have Muang Thong quite a distance ahead on "fair results" and expected goals. Bangkok Utd have really rode their luck at times and I actually only have them fractionally in front of Bangkok Glass and Ratchaburi on season performance so far. Saying that though I feel Polking does a lot better job of rotating his squad up to now.
Muang Thong worry me at times, throwing a maximum strength squad out every game, when with their quality they don't really need to. They have already been struggling a little with injuries and this situation could easily worsen, especially with half of their team having possible national team duties in the next few months on top. Still think Muang Thong will edge it overall though.
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