If there’s one team punters should be looking at when it comes to placing football bets on goals in the Premier League this season, it’s Liverpool.

Brendan Rogers’ in-form team are currently the top flight’s highest scoring side, have the top two strikers in the leading goalscorers chart and have scored three goals or more on 15 occasions in the league so far this season.

Interestingly they have found the net in the first-half of 26 out of the 28 league games played up until now and you have to go back five months and 18 games to find the last time they drew a blank; a 2-0 reverse to Arsenal at the Emirates on November 2nd 2013.

Liverpool v Manchester United betting

So while this is all rather intriguing, how can punters try and Kop a profit from the Anfield side’s goal rush so far this campaign? And what are the best bets to be looking at for their crunch clash with Manchester United this Sunday?

Well aside from the traditional ways of betting on fixed odds Total Goals, Over/Under bands, first goalscorer or time of first goal, here’s how football spread betters have been getting in on the action.

The table below looks specifically at the football spread betting market of Time of First Team Goal. This is where the spread betting companies predict which minute they think each team will score in a game.

And given Liverpool’s fast starts in the league up until now, you can see in the far two columns how sellers have been raking in the cash – and how buyers have been feeling the pain.

Note that for the Southampton home and Arsenal away fixtures, Liverpool did not score but for the purpose of how spread betting companies settle this market, the figure is entered as 90 rather than 0.

Spread betting on the time of first Liverpool goal

Match	Home/Away	Score (Liv score first)	Time of first Liv goal	Spreadex pre-match spread	P&L from £1 sell	P&L from £1 buy
Stoke	h	1-0	37	49-52	£12	-£15
Villa	a	1-0	21	49-52	£28	-£31
Man Utd	h	1-0	4	50-53	£46	-£49
Swansea	a	2-2	4	49-52	£45	-£48
Southampton	h	0-1	90	45-48	-£45	£42
Sunderland	a	3-1	28	46-49	£18	-£21
C Palace	h	3-1	13	37-40	£24	-£27
Newcastle	a	2-2	42	42-45	£0	-£3
West Brom	h	4-1	12	37-40	£25	-£28
Arsenal	a	0-2	90	50-53	-£40	£37
Fulham	h	4-0	23	32-35	£17	-£20
Everton	a	3-3	5	50-53	£45	-£48
Hull	a	1-3	27	41-44	£14	-£17
Norwich	h	5-1	15	32-35	£17	-£20
West Ham	h	4-1	42	36-39	-£6	£3
Tottenham	a	5-0	18	51-54	£33	-£36
Cardiff	h	3-1	25	35-38	£10	-£13
Man City	a	1-2	24	52-55	£28	-£31
Chelsea	a	1-2	3	53-56	£50	-£53
Hull	h	2-0	36	36-39	£0	-£3
Stoke	a	5-3	5	39-42	£34	-£37
Aston Villa	h	2-2	45	32-35	-£13	£10
Everton	h	4-0	21	40-43	£19	-£22
West Brom	a	1-1	24	40-43	£16	-£19
Arsenal	h	5-1	1	45-48	£44	-£47
Fulham	a	3-2	41	36-39	-£5	£2
Swansea	h	4-3	3	35-38	£32	-£35
Southampton	a	3-0	16	44-47	£28	-£31
TOTAL P&L					£468	-£552

As well as Time of First Team Goal, there’s a host of other goal-related football spread betting markets that have been attracting Spreadex punters.

For example, Total Goal Minutes (the minutes each goal is scored in a game, aggregated) ended up at 415 in the Reds’ 5-3 thriller at Stoke in January, meaning anyone who bought for £1 on a spread of 141-151 before the game would have made £264 ((415 – 151) x £1).

Spread betters buying Luis Suarez’s Player Goal Minutes (minutes of goals of named player scored in a game, aggregated) in his four goal blast against Norwich on a spread of 50-53 would have made £100 ((153 – 53) x £1) and those getting on Liverpool Goal Rush (based on points awarded per number of goals scored by team 0 = 0, 1 = 10, 2 = 20, 3 = 33, 4 = 50, 5 = 70, 6 or more = 100) at a spread of 27-30 would have made £40 from a £1 buy in the 5-1 demolition of Arsenal in February.

And there are plenty more goal-related markets to choose from too including Time of Last Goal, Headed Goal Minutes, Penalty Goal Minutes, Team Leading Minutes, First Half Goals and, the more simple, Total Goals. Remember also that you can play on all these markets if you think there will be few, or no, goals in a game by going the opposite way on the spread.

The difference between football spread betting and football fixed odds betting

But before we all get carried away with the information above, it’s important to note that the big difference between spread betting on football and fixed odds football bets is that you can lose more than your stake in the spreads if the bet goes against you.

E.g. anyone buying £1 of Suarez Goal Minutes at 53 would lose £53 every time the Uruguayan fails to find the net and buyers of Total Goal Minutes at 151 would lose £151 if the game ended 0-0. So caution is advised – always work out your potential downside before a bet and do your research beforehand.

With that in mind, looking at the big Old Trafford clash on Sunday, the two games played between the sides already this season produced just a single goal on each occasion and you have to go back three seasons and eight matches since four goals were produced by the sides.

So whether you think it’s going to be a goal glut or a shutout, it’s fair to say the spreads can certainly offer a wider selection of betting markets for wily punters to try and net from goal-related bets than just your traditional fixed odds options.