Player Analysis: By The Numbers Week 13
There’s a certain satisfaction when you make what looks like outlandish claims in Fantasy Football and you’re proved to be right. It’s not an egotistical satisfaction but a lovely feeling that you’re part of the solution for managers, not part of the problem. Of course, whilst most of my article last week focused on Aston Villa getting something from the bottom team/top team encounter with Manchester City, I do wonder how many people took the advice? Somethings can just seem to ‘out there’ to follow.
This week I want to follow on from last week’s use of bookmaker’s odds to discuss three games specifically; Everton vs Aston Villa, Southampton vs. Stoke and Crystal Palace vs. Sunderland. Why these three games? Well BET365 are offering the same odds on all three home teams – 1.53. Those are short odds and roughly equate to a 65% chance of winning. The interesting thing from my point of view is to look at the score-lines that have come up historically from game played with these odds.
Over the last seven seasons:
18% ended 1-1
18% ended 2-0
15% ended 1-0
12% ended 3-1
9% ended 0-1
6% ended 2-1
6% ended 4-3
the remaining 18% ended 0-0, 3-3, 2-2, 3-0, 4-4 & 4-0.
That means that the home team haswon 62% of games, the draw 29% of games and the away team managed to win just 9% of games. With an average number of goals scored by the home team of 1.85 it looks like Villa, Stoke & Sunderland are in serious trouble. Furthermore, the away team kept a cleansheet in just 11% of games (not that I expected any of you to be tempted by their defences). On the flip side, the home team kept a clean sheet a little over 40% of the time which means that, on average, one of these three teams is keeping one. Which one? If I had to guess, I’d say that Southampton look most likely.
For those of you who are eyeing up the Arsenal match as the best place to focus your efforts, you might be interested to know that the Gunners should win 62% of games, draw 19% of games and lose 19% of games. This is obviously worse than the three games already covered because of the higher chance of a loss rather than a draw. They have the same 42% chance of a cleansheet but in this game, West Brom will have a 17% chance. That’s the same as picking the right number on a single dice – not probable but certainly not impossible.
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t fancy Arsenal but for me the three home games win hands down.
Let’s move on to the predictor.
Predictor
As you can see, City are the big favourites and I have to totally agree. I think that there was a little naivety from the Manchester side when they played Villa, it was as if they expected to score at some point because of the difference in quality between the two sides, so they never really showed any get up and go. That won’t be the case this time so expect a far more potent display.
The next three matches all cover what I’ve already discussed. The predictor puts them as slightly lower favourites than the bookmaker’s odds but it feels like it’s in the right place. I think that Chelsea look an interesting choice. We have to expect a backlash at some point (don’t we?) and I would have thought that at home to Norwich could be it. If Chelsea lose this math then surely it will be time for Jose to go, wont it? The predictor is even less bullish of Arsenal’s chances suggesting that they’re slightly less than a coin toss to win.
Poisson
So where will these goals be this week? The Poisson distribution suggests that City are going to score a boat load but with generally only one in response. Spurs vs. West Ham looks to have a few in it and it’s certainly a good bet for over 2.5 goals. United look strong for keeping a cleansheet, closely followed by Swansea & Bournemouth.
Looking at the defences you should be avoiding, the top score goes to Liverpool who have a 96% chance of conceding. West Brom follow close behind with 90% and finally Newcastle, even though they’re at home, face a Leicester side who are full of goals. Of course, you’d be crazy to not have Vardy in your squad considering how close he is to equalling the consecutive matches record. He’s in all of mine.
Finally, for those of you who like a bet on your football. I’ve been putting my work on correct score predictions to good work and managed to get a correct score treble last week covering Villa/City 0-0, Stoke/Chelsea 1-0 and Bournemouth/Newcastle 0-1, which as an individual accumulator had odds of nearly 2,500-1. As it seems to be successful, I’ll be posting a free weekly correct score accumulator tip on my personal blog page every week. If you’re interested then follow this link for your correct score accumulator tip.
See you next week.
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