Matt talks stats / Matthew Walton / 02 April 2008 / Leave a comment " class="free-bet-btn" rel="external" onclick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/G4/inline-freebet');" target="_blank">Free Bet

Matt trawls through the stats to tell us to what extent the context and importance of a match to the teams involved can help us with our football betting

When faced with this weekend's fixtures there are many ways in which we can go about selecting the most likely winners (and sources of profit). Some we've discussed already in these articles and many, many more we'll explore over the coming weeks and months.

Well, whether your betting is driven by current form, home records, away records, team line-ups, European qualification, the play-offs, promotion and/or relegation issues, previous head-to-head form or whatever ... here's another angle for you to consider.

At this time of the season the talk is often about both teams in a game having 'something to play for'. They're either going for glory at the top or hoping to avoid the drop at the bottom. Either way, there aren't too many 'dead rubbers' as sides make one last effort to end their season on a high.

Therefore, we have the perennial discussion about the divide between top and bottom. Should we expect Manchester United (and, for that matter, Bristol City, Swansea City and Peterborough) to regularly put the lesser sides to the sword or should we look to the Bolton's and Bournemouth's of this world to put up a decent fight against the sides higher up their respective divisions.

To illustrate this point we've looked at the Premier League for the current season and have produced two form tables for the current campaign.

As you'll see, we have the performance data for teams when they play sides in the top half of the table (places 1-10) and those in the bottom half of the table (places 11-20). And, please note, these are the places when these matches were played and not as the teams stand today.

The use of the tables is governed by the way in which the fixtures fall. For example this weekend (as with any weekend) there will be three types of fixtures - that's top versus top, bottom versus bottom or top versus bottom.

For this weekend the fixtures break down thus (and we have added in brackets the relevant win percentage of sides when faced with the corresponding top half or bottom half opponents) :-

Arsenal (60) v Liverpool (33) - top v top
Aston Villa (56) v Bolton (6) - top v bottom
Blackburn (70) v Spurs (22) - top v bottom
Fulham (13) v Sunderland (43) - bottom v bottom
Man City (27) v Chelsea (40) - top v top
Newcastle (44) v Reading (46) - bottom v bottom
Wigan (40) v Birmingham (37) - bottom v bottom
Everton (76) v Derby (0) - top v bottom
Middlesbrough (12) v Manchester United (83) - bottom v top

Looking at these fixtures, and their relevant percentages, we should be looking for the widest disparity in the win ratios. Hence we find the Everton/Derby match has a 76 point advantage for the Toffees whilst Manchester United at Middlesbrough are only just behind at 71. Aston Villa also have a healthy 50 point lead over Gary Megson's Bolton and Blackburn are 48 point 'favourites' over Spurs.

Working on a rudimentary level you would assume that Everton ([1.27]) and Manchester United ([1.46]) are the good things of the weekend on Betfair. Following on from that you would find Aston Villa ([1.72]) and Blackburn ([2.48] ) as the next in line. And you'll note how the table, in this instance, works on a sliding scale - the wider the margin of points in favour of a team, the shorter their price.

It may also prove to be of use when considering matches between sides of similar standing.

Arsenal ([2.24]) get a clear vote over Liverpool, Sunderland ([3.3]) may prove to be the value at Craven Cottage, Chelsea ([1.8]) to beat Man City and so on.

In these matches we don't find that the wider the margin of points in favour of a side, then the shorter their price - Chelsea are 13% ahead of Man City and Arsenal are 27% better than Liverpool but the Blues are a much shorter price. That said, they still represent a good jumping off point for your studies for this coming weekend.

And, let's not forget, we're not factoring the draw into these calculations. This table could still be a useful guide as both the matches at Newcastle and Wigan have very tight margins of 2% and 3% respectively between the two sides involved. Perhaps the draw in either, or both, is one to consider.

Aside from this particular issue, in general terms, it's worth commenting on the vagaries of the fixture list. Funny how they can work for and against certain sides.

See that this season Manchester United have only played 14 matches against sides in the top half of the table but Reading have played 19 - that's simply down to the form (and position) of sides when they played them but, at least on paper, Reading have had a much tougher time of it than United.

There are notable surprises as well in this data. Blackburn have just one win in 15 matches against top half teams (7%), Portsmouth a moderate 20% win ratio. Take the view that any side can beat a bad team then perhaps we learn more about a club's real ability when they face better opposition. Mind you, Arsenal's achilles heel seems to be against the bottom half sides (65%) and not the top half sides.

Ultimately, it may prove slightly fanciful to craft a whole betting system around these figures in isolation. However, added to some of the other criteria listed at the start you can see how we can add depth to our analysis and come up with more informed and (we trust) profitable bets.

Tags: Derby relegation, football stats, Premiership football