This season’s Premier League title race continues to throw up tantalizing opportunities for SportFi traders, many of whom got in on the weekend action as the top three contenders returned to the pitch.

Not for the first time, Fan Token price charts closely mirrored real-world events as traders sought to cash in. The question is, were you backing league leaders Arsenal or the teams giving chase, Manchester City and Aston Villa? Or perhaps you deployed a more complex strategy in a bid to earn profit from all three.

Whatever the case may be, here’s a closer look at what happened in the Premier League Fan Token stakes based on this weekend’s big games.

Manchester City Fan Token ($CITY) Rises 6% Pre-Derby, Then Falls

Manchester City was the first of the Premier League contenders to take to the pitch, at 12.30 GMT on Saturday (Jan. 17), in a huge derby battle with fifth-placed Manchester United at Old Trafford.

Although City were on a 13-match unbeaten run, three consecutive draws in the league had hobbled their title challenge as Arsenal opened up a six-point lead. Between Jan. 1, when the first of those draws occurred, and Jan. 7, when the third was recorded, the value of the Manchester City Fan Token ($CITY) fell from $0.698 to $0.670, a drop of 4%.

Subsequent wins in the FA Cup and League Cup ought to have restored a measure of confidence though, and in the days leading up to the Manchester derby the price of $CITY rose 6%, from $0.648 to $0.687. Were traders positioning to capitalize on the resurrection of City’s title charge?

$CITY may have bounced pre-game, but it was Manchester United who benefited from a new manager bounce as interim boss Michael Carrick steered his side to a 2-0 win. Predictably, the $CITY gains were quickly wiped out as attention turned to Arsenal and their 17.30 GMT kickoff against Nottingham Forest…

Arsenal ($AFC) Pops 5.6% After City Lose Before Correcting

City’s slip-up meant that Arsenal could go nine points clear. All they had to do was beat struggling Nottingham Forest, a team that had lost four of their last five league games. Adding to the litmus test was the fact that two of those defeats came to Manchester City and Aston Villa.

Naturally, Arsenal were heavy favorites and the ramifications of City’s loss at Old Trafford were not lost on Fan Token traders, who piled into the Arsenal Fan Token ($AFC) after full-time in Manchester: trade volumes surged from $3.7m on Saturday morning to $8.5m on Saturday night.

Between the end of the Man City match and the Arsenal kickoff, the value of $AFC also jumped 5.6%, from $0.425 to $0.449.

Disappointingly from an Arsenal perspective, the game ended goalless, and sentiment soon cooled as the token shed its gains before the sun rose on Sunday morning (falling to $0.417).

Although the Gunners had technically extended their lead at the top, from six points to seven, Aston Villa had the chance to slash that to four on Sunday afternoon.

Aston Villa ($AVL) Value Increases 16.5% After Rivals Lose Steam

The viability of a Villa title charge continues to be debated, but whether you believe they can go all the way or not, their presence in the battle presents opportunities for the Aston Villa Fan Token ($AVL).

Case in point: this weekend. After City lost and Arsenal drew, all eyes turned to Villa and their token, whose value rose from $0.163 to $0.190 after full-time in Nottingham, a jump of 16.5%. This alone indicates how Fan Tokens can rise dramatically, in a short period, purely on the basis of rising sentiment.

After falling from this peak, $AVL rose again the next day ahead of their match with Everton. Like City before them, though, they failed to close the gap on Arsenal after suffering a 1-0 defeat at Villa Park.

Given Unai Emery’s side had won their last 11 games on home turf, it must have been a shock to the system for traders convinced Villa would motor into second place. Between Saturday night and Monday morning, $AVL went from $0.190 to $0.148, a loss of 22.1%.

Fan Token Frenzy

Despite back-to-back goalless draws, Arsenal are now sitting pretty seven points clear of both Manchester City and Aston Villa, and the value of $AFC is up 20% since the start of the month.

The weekend’s games, and the Fan Token frenzy they provoked, illustrates just how quickly sentiment can shift, trade volumes can surge, and tokens can rise and fall.

Meanwhile, the title race continues.

Ronnie McCluskey: Fan Tokens Market Reporter