I’ve always been interested in splitting leagues into quarters. This way it’s seems easier to make evaluations of form etc. In the Premiership this would mean having 4 sets of five teams to consider. Something that has caught my eye from time to time has been the number of matches between teams in the top five places in the league table which don’t appear to go to form. Or so I thought.
There aren’t many matches where the top five in the Premiership play each other on any particular week. There are occasions when three successive weeks go by without such a game. However when there are such games they are never straight forward where the results are concerned. Unfortunately there aren’t any obvious streaks.
Over 8 seasons up to 2011/12 there was a total of 129 such games.
These ended as: 60 Homes, 33 Aways, 36 Draws.
Percentage wise thus: Home 46, Away 26, Draw 28.
This compares favourably with the general pattern of results for the whole league over the same period:
Home 45, Away 27, Draw 28.
So in general the Top Five bear comparison to the rest of the league. As far as the bare results go, they are very much run of the mill. However when broken down they do get a little more interesting.
Where the higher placed team is at home it is generally best to LAY the AWAY team. There have only been twelve away wins in the last 8 seasons. As another 17 of these games were drawn you can see the AWAY sides have been up against it. Winning AWAY LAY BETS of 55 from just 67 matches. An attractive 82% return.
The results split for these games is as follows: Home/Draw 55/67, Home/Away 50/76, Away/Draw 29/57.
Where the higher placed team is playing away things are much more even. From a total of 62 games, the results were split quite evenly: Homes 22 Aways 21 Draws 19.
The combinations were thus: Home/Draw 41/62, Home /Away 43/62 and Away/Draw 40/62.
These stats don’t give much room for manoeuvre. Probably the best opportunities would be offered by backing the drawn games. Of course the problem would be prices. 19 drawn games represents 30% of the games played. so we would be looking for a price minimum of approximately 3.30 to break even. A fairly tough task but not insurmountable.
Putting these two sets of figures together gives a slightly fuller picture. In total there were 129 matches in which the top five teams met. Not a lot for 8 seasons but very manageable. The higher placed team, whether at home or away, won on 59 occasions, (49.7%) and either lost or drew on 70 occasions, (54.2%) This slant suggests that there would be an advantage in LAYING the highest placed side.
So the choice appears to be between, LAYING the AWAY team when the higher placed side is at HOME and LAYING the higher placed team wherever the match is played. I’m sure a little bit of research will give individuals there best way forward.
