Football Food For Thought / Matthew Walton / 07 May 2008 /

"Magical" Matt Walton investigates the myth about good sides being able to sneak results when they play badly but poor sides always seem to lose the close matches.

We're getting close to the end of the season: a time when championship battles are won and relegation dogfights are lost. Furthermore, it's a time for much reflection on what has gone before. Reasons are sought to explain why ABC did well, whereas XYZ did badly. Good sides are hailed, poor sides are hounded.

One of the classic, some would say clichéd, distinctions between success and failure is the pundit's dream expression - 'Well, you know, the sign of a good side is they always get a result even when they play badly'. These wise words spoken as they stroke their long white beards.

But is this really the case? Are the better sides the ones capable of picking up the points when it doesn't look like being their day? Do they win titles and qualify for Europe because they claim the vital result whilst others let it slip?

With the aid of the table below we can set about finding the answer.

Taking the view that a 'bad day' for a side can be best described as a match when they either don't score a goal, or maybe score just once, we analysed the results for the Premier League season to date. Maybe this set of figures could confirm or confound the wise words of the so-called experts.

The table shows the record for each side this season for matches when they have either scored 1 goal in the game or have failed to score at all. Each has a W-D-L figure plus an overall total and a percentage score (based on the number of points they gained compared to the number of matches played).

The first point to make is that the teams won't all have played the same number of matches in this table. Quite naturally, some sides score 2 goals or more on a higher number of occasions than others. For example, Derby County have scored 2 goals or more in 3 of their 37 league matches to date (hence 34 matches are included in this table) whilst Manchester United have done it on no fewer than 21 occasions (therefore, we only have 16 of their matches shown here).

Secondly, and following on from this, those sides with the most entries tend to be the bottom sides. Derby (33), Bolton (30), Reading (28), Fulham (27) and Birmingham (26) all have the highest totals. Basically, if you don't score goals you don't climb the table!

Thirdly, when you fail the score the best you can hope for is a 0-0 draw (own goals count as scoring for these purposes). Hence, Liverpool have a very good record of 5 draws from 8 matches when they fail to score (63%) whilst Portsmouth with 6 out of 14 (43%) and Blackburn with 4 out of 10 (40%) are also quite respectable.

Sunderland come out worst with just one draw from the 15 matches in which they have failed to score (7%). Even the hapless Derby manage nearly 10%.

The fourth point to make is when it comes to scoring one goal in a game we see Chelsea as the masters of the 1-0 scoreline. In 9 of the 13 matches where they have scored just one goal, the Blues go on to win the game (69%). The other 4 matches ended as 1-1 draws. So when Chelsea score, they don't lose - they haven't lost a game this season when they've scored once, twice, three times or more.

Next up are Manchester United who have won 54% of the games in which they scored once (7 of 13), whilst down at the bottom Birmingham City have won just one of the 14 games in which they have scored once (7%).

Finally, the percentage in the right hand column. This denotes the total amount of points won by a team from those on offer in the matches in which they scored just one goal or failed to score.

A direct correlation here with the league as Chelsea (59%), Manchester United (52%) and Arsenal (43%) head the table whereas Birmingham (14%), Fulham (13%) and Derby (8%) lurk down at the bottom.

So moving this onto the weekend what does it tell us? It would suggest that if the scoring is low in the respective matches we can expect Reading to get a result at Derby, for Birmingham to lose out to Blackburn and Fulham to miss out at Portsmouth.

In short, Reading stay up, Birmingham and Fulham go down.

As for the top of the table, Manchester United face a Wigan side with pretty good statistics themselves (27%) whereas Chelsea take on Bolton (23%). However, both the fancied sides should still oblige if the matches are low scoring and that would give the championship to the Reds.

To conclude; yes, the good sides do seem to fare better when they don't score many goals. However, this finding merely proves another adage in that a good side is based upon a sound defence first and a potent attack second!

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