Football Stats System

[mathare]

I have been doing a lot of spreadsheet work over the fast few weeks with the full set of results from the last 12 seasons in the English and Scottish league. My results cover the Premiership, SPL, Divisions 1-3 in England and Scotland and also the Conference. That's 38946 matches!

I've been looking for trends and statistics that indciate outcomes worth backing or laying. I've also been doing some more advanced stuff on value that I plan to make available to members only. But here's the free stuff... :)

**Remember these are figures based on medium to long-term trends and that teams may have performed better or worse in recent years**

Over the 12 seasons the percentage games that have been home win/draw/away win are:

44.47% home win
27.02% draw
28.51% away win

Home bankers
Unsurprisingly the top 3 home bankers are Rangers (75.88% of home games won), Man Utd (71.37%) and Celtic (69.74%). These three are significantly clear of Newcastle in fourth place with 62.29%.

The bottom 3 (excluding teams who have only played a season or two in the leagues I have covered) are Montrose (29.68%), Cowdenbeath (29.73%) and Albion (30.14%)

Away bankers
The same three teams that made up the home bankers top 3 crop up again when we look at away wins, although the order is slightly different. Rangers still lead with 58.33% of away games won followed by Celtic (56.14%) and Man Utd (53.42%). Again there is a large gap to fourth but this time it is occupied by Arsenal on 42.74%.
(Actually Arsenal were 6th behind Gretna and Airdrie Utd but they have both only played 1 season in the leagues covered so were discounted)

At the other end of the table, ignoring the teams that haven't got enough data to be significant we find Southampton (17.95%), Leyton Orient (18.48%) and Southend (19.20%)

Draw bankers
To be honest there is no real such thing as a draw banker. However, some teams have drawn a lot more games than average and some have drawn far fewer. I have broken these down into home and away draws as shown below:

Home draws:
Airdrie 34.57%
Crystal Palace 32.84%
Exeter 32.72%

Rangers 14.04%
Crewe 18.75%
East Stirling 19.63%

Away draws
Gillingham 33.70%
Wycombe 33.46%
Oldham 32.72%

Dumbarton 18.75%
Cowdenbeath 19.91%
Brechin 20.72%

So what use are these stats? I don't know, I just thought they maybe a useful tool once the football season starts which is now less than a week away. :)

They may be used to form the basis of a value betting system I suppose. Value betting works on the principle of comparing your reckoning of how likely an event is to happen against the bookmaker's and looking for differences. The above stats show how often certain events have occurred in the past so you may wish to use them as a predicition of the future. Consider the stat for Airdrie drawing at home. They drew 34.57% of their home games in the past 12 seasons ie over 1 in 3. In order to get any value from this bet you need to find a bookie who will offer you longer odds than those that equate to 34.57% ie decimal odds of 2.9 or greater.

I hope to be able to add a lot more to this thread as the stats churn out of my spreadsheet so watch this space...

[bigcumba]

Excellent stuff Mat, interesting to see my old home team (Airdrie) in there! Look forward to seeing what else you can come up with! :)

[MattR]

Great stuff Mathare. Some interesting stats in there. It's lucky Pompey moved up to the Premier otherwise they'd have been miles clear in last place for away wins! Sometimes it felt like three away wins was a cracking season! Will be following this with interest.

[John]

Sound set of stats Mat, and your other Footy Stats posts have been excellent too. I hope you can find the time to post the system qualifiers when the season kicks off, should be very interesting to see if the patterns continue. :D

[mathare]

When I work out how to manage these stats into some form of sensible system SJ I will post the qualifiers, as long as I remember :)

I may have some more stuff to churn out for you tonight...

[John]

Sounds good Mat, look forward to reading it. If the systems take too much time to work out then not to worry, it would just be a great shame to see such an amazing set of stats go to waste. I might have a look at some footy systems myself once I get some more free time and keep you posted. :)

[mathare]

Feel free to play with the stats I am churning out in any way you see fit but please do keep me posted as to how things are going.

In the meantime I have thought of a new angle to approach this from. Handicap betting. Using the results from the past 12 seasons I have estimated the number of points I expect each team to get this season if past form holds true. That's a big if but I thought as I had the data it might be worth a look.

I've only done the Premiership so far but the table looks interesting. I have taken the average number of points per game for each team, multiplied it by the number of games in a season and then added the Betfair handicap to each team's total and come up with...

Crystal Palace - 108.7
Norwich - 105.6
West Brom - 105.2
Blackburn - 99.8
Man City - 96.4
Everton - 92.5
Newcastle - 92.3
Birmingham - 92.1
Fulham - 91.7
Portsmouth - 90.5
Tottenham - 90.1
Liverpool - 89.7
Bolton - 89.6
Man Utd - 87.3
Charlton - 86.5
Middlesbrough - 85.0
Aston Villa - 84.6
Southampton - 83.6
Arsenal - 70.1
Chelsea - 65.9

What does this tell us then?

For a start I think it is fair to strike out the top three from that table. They are the newly promoted clubs so I think their average points per game is misrepresentative of their current position. Instead we need to look for teams who have been in this league all or most of the time in question. Which means Blackburn may be a good bet. Currently trading at 30 on Betfair, could be worth a small bet.

On the other hand Betfair favourites Liverpool could well be worth a lay as even with their 25.5pt handicap they only come midtable by my calculations. Liverpool are available to lay at 5.5 at the time of writing.

I'm not going to bother with the other leagues as I have just realised that Betfair don't have handicap markets for them or where they do £0 has been matched on them

[mathare]

Spreads.

I've compared my estimate of the number of points each team will score in the coming season to the spreads given by Bethilo and I think these are the teams to go with. In each case I have given the info in the format
Team name - my estimate - Sell/Buy - Spread

Lines in italic are bets I think may be slightly dodgy as the team in question hasn't been in the currrent league for very long.

Arsenal - 70.1 - Sell - 79-80.5
Birmingham - 56.6 - Buy - 49.5-51
Blackburn - 58.3 - Buy - 46-47.5
Bolton - 57.1 - Buy - 45.5-47
Charlton - 54.0 - Buy - 46.5-48
Chelsea - 60.4 - Sell - 79-80.5
Fulham - 58.2 - Buy - 45.5-47

To me Blackburn look a good buy on the spreads based on past form. Chelsea look like a definite sell but how much difference has Abramovich made to them? Last season Chelsea racked up 79 points so the rich Russian has lifted their expected total by 1.7 points a season. I'm not sure I'd sell Chelsea's points but it's something to think about.

I've done a similar thing for the First Division (or League Campionship if you want to bow down to the corporate whores that now run football) and the following teams stand out for me...

Burnley - 62.8 - Buy - 52-54
Gillingham - 63.8 - Buy - 52.5-54.5
Preston - 70.3 - Buy - 56.5-58.5
Sheff Utd - 65.2 - Sell - 70.5-72.5

In case you wanted similar for Div 2 the stand-out bets are

Chesterfield - 63.5 - Buy - 48-52
Huddersfield - 63.6 - Buy - 54-56
Hull - 59.6 - Sell - 71.5-73.5
Swindon - 57.2 - Sell - 67-69
Wrexham - 65.4 - Buy - 56-58

[sparkyminer]

Spreads.


Arsenal - 70.1 - Sell - 79-80.5
Birmingham - 56.6 - Buy - 49.5-51
Blackburn - 58.3 - Buy - 46-47.5
Bolton - 57.1 - Buy - 45.5-47
Charlton - 54.0 - Buy - 46.5-48
Chelsea - 60.4 - Sell - 79-80.5
Fulham - 58.2 - Buy - 45.5-47


Sorry for being a bit thick Mat, so if Arsenal don't get 79 - 80.5 points the bet wins, either above or below?

[mathare]

With spread bets sell means to go lower than the bottom end of the range given by the firm offering the spread and buy means to go higher than the top end of the range. So I am suggesting we sell Arsenal at 79 because my stats suggest they will get less than 79 points next season. If they finish with 70 points we win 79-70 = 9 times our stake. But if they score 90 points we'd lose 90-79 = 11 times our stake

My stats show Fulham should get more than the 47 points the bookies reckon they will get at most so I am suggesting we buy that spread at 47. If they get 57 points we get 10 times our stake back but we would lose 1 times our stake for every point below 47 they get

[manckevin]

Anything of note for the mighty ( :D ) Stockport County mathare?

[mathare]

I think you've answered your own question there Kev :)

Hang on, let me have a look....

Stockport County - the past 12 season predict 60.8 points for this season so you could lay them in the relegation market, currently trading at 10 on Betfair. Quite a dead market though.

At home Stockport are almost average personified with win/draw/loss percentages of 41.67/29.71/28.62 whereas away they aren't as hot with figures of 27.54/27.17/45.29

Not a lot I'm afraid Kev. Nothing particularly interesting in the correct score betting either

[sparkyminer]

Cheers Mat, makes sense.

[vegyjones]

At around 7-1 Orient are a massive lay in the relegation market.
We won't go down... you can bet on it! :D

Preston look good Mathare.
Have been there or thereabouts for the past couple of seasons
and should go close again in a "tight" league championship. :D

[presto]

Preston look good Mathare.
Have been there or thereabouts for the past couple of seasons
and should go close again in a "tight" league championship.

i have to strongly disagree with that vegy, i think the points adverage will be high, as we have spent quite a lot of the time in the lower leagues, including 3rd division champions, (a few playoff's). 2nd division champions, (a playoff), and under moyes we were in the 1st division playoff finals. but now things have changed, last season we were very dissapointing, and scince then things have got worse - we have lost 8 players, without a single transfere comming in. also our top striker is desperate to leave the club, we are also full of injuries and without cover. the manager is an idiot. and our pre-season friendlies look like this.

bamber bridge - LOST
morcambe - LOST
acrington stanley - LOST
middlesbrough - LOST
blackburn rovers - LOST

i know friendlies are pretty much meaninless, but when the likes of acrington stanley can put 4 past you, and you cant score in any other games, being outplayed in each, you start to worry.

word has also spread that the chairmans instructions are - try not to get relegated.

[vegyjones]

perhaps then, I would give them a miss based on that :yikes: information.

O's are 50-1 for promotion, feel that we have a good each way chance,
but then again I am forever an optomist...
been saying the same thing for the last nine seasons! :D

[Jonny2621]

west ham are strongly fancied and rightly so, with sheringham as a wise v old head, and now chadwick on board today...while defence still looks a problem there are not that many good attacking teams in div 1 as the best players are being snapped up by the poorer premiership clubs or the richer div 1 clubs.

I think goals are a certainty this year with rebrov, sheringham, harewood, zamora up front and chadwick on the right and the new wunderkind cohen on the left to provide the supply. I will certainly be looking closely at the over/under 2.5 goals market for WHU matches this year, they will score lots and let lots in....dare i say it a bit Keegan/Man City when they were in this division....

i am biased and i dont care.. :wiggle:

Jon

[vegyjones]

west ham are strongly fancied and rightly so, with sheringham as a wise v old head, and now chadwick on board today...while defence still looks a problem there are not that many good attacking teams in div 1 as the best players are being snapped up by the poorer premiership clubs or the richer div 1 clubs.

I think goals are a certainty this year with rebrov, sheringham, harewood, zamora up front and chadwick on the right and the new wunderkind cohen on the left to provide the supply. I will certainly be looking closely at the over/under 2.5 goals market for WHU matches this year, they will score lots and let lots in....dare i say it a bit Keegan/Man City when they were in this division....

:laugh Hilarious Jon
Made me laugh! :D

[sparkyminer]

I think goals are a certainty this year with rebrov, sheringham, harewood, zamora up front and chadwick on the right and the new wunderkind cohen on the left to provide the supply.


Jon
Bloody hell, the other 4 are going to be a bit stretched aren't they? :yikes: Goalie's going to have to muck in as well! :rolleyes: :)

[Jonny2621]

with the defence we have these guys HAVE to get plenty of goals, they couldnt defend a set piece if the other side sent one player up and put the rest in their own box.

Now Carrick is off too.....not getting any better... :( earlier enthusiasm diminishing quickly...

Jon

[manckevin]

I think you've answered your own question there Kev :)

Hang on, let me have a look....

Stockport County - the past 12 season predict 60.8 points for this season so you could lay them in the relegation market, currently trading at 10 on Betfair. Quite a dead market though.

At home Stockport are almost average personified with win/draw/loss percentages of 41.67/29.71/28.62 whereas away they aren't as hot with figures of 27.54/27.17/45.29

Not a lot I'm afraid Kev. Nothing particularly interesting in the correct score betting either

Cheers anyway :) Still think we'll do better than most predict this season with Luke Beckett back (even if we did sell Alby to Hull) :(

[MattR]

with the defence we have these guys HAVE to get plenty of goals, they couldnt defend a set piece if the other side sent one player up and put the rest in their own box.

Now Carrick is off too.....not getting any better... :( earlier enthusiasm diminishing quickly...

Jon
Looks like we're getting him at Pompey. How was he last season, must say I always rated him when I saw him for West Ham on tv. Not played them in recent years so I've never seen him live.

[Jonny2621]

for someone who was a rising star no more than two years ago he didnt set anything on fire last season, he certainly didnt look head and shoulders above everyone else. Add to that the fact that he was on massive wages and with a year on his contract they had no choice but to get him out for whatever they could get.

He has excellent vision and passing skills and can tackle but i think his main failing is his lack of pace, boy is he slow....also he seems to want to hit the killer 50 yd pass every time which means he gives the ball away a lot. I dont want a ray wilkins sideways pass every time but you cant go for the killer pass EVERY time. It aslo has the effect of making you a little, well, long ball ? Not much use with Defoe or Connelly up front was it ???

Good luck for the season mate