Remembering Reading's last Premier League stint

Apr 18th, 2012 - Posted by Andrew_Brocker in Football

bettingexpert blog editor. Always taking the alternative route to finding the value.

This week Reading secured promotion to the Premier League next season with a 1-0 win over Nottingham Forest. Today on the blog we look back at how punters experienced the club's last time in England's top flight.

It's been a meteroic rise up the Championship table for Reading, a club that was sitting in 16th place at the start of November, 15 games into the season. Since then they have ticked off 23 wins in 29 matches to sit top with the Championship title all but claimed.

Previous Premier League performance

Reading's previous appearance in the English top flight lasted two seasons. After promotion from the Championship, the club had a more than successful first season finishing 8th with 55 points, enjoying the thin air of 6th place at the end of February with just 10 matches to play.

Even Stakes Return	Matches	Reading	Draw	Opposition
Season 2006/2007	38	12.60%	-28.70%	-3.40%
Season 2007/2008	38	-25.50%	-42.40%	21.80%

As the table above shows, punters backing Reading in their first season cleaned up as the club returned over 12% profit at even stakes. In fact, at the end of February backers were up 23% at even stakes as the club collected 13 wins from their first 28 matches played.

Obviously things weren't so profitable the following season. Betting against the club at even stakes would have seen you come away with almost 22% profit. And as the season began to fall apart, betting against them over the last 19 matches would have seen you claim an even stakes profit of 46%, as they lost 13 of those last 19 matches, 8 of which were to clubs starting odds on to win.

Home & Away performance

As clear the contrast was between their first and second seasons, so to was their form home and away.

Even Stakes Return	Matches	Reading	Draw	Opposition
Home	38	23.40%	-63.90%	16.80%
Away	38	-36.30%	-7.10%	1.60%

As the table above shows, betting on Reading to win in each of their 38 home matches across their two year Premier League stint would have seen you claim over 23% profit at even stakes. It was a very different tale had you bet them away from home. Doing so would have seen you suffer a 36% loss at even stakes.

Over & Under performance

In fact the club saw a draw in just 4 home appearances across their two season Premier League stint, meaning visiting clubs similarly enjoyed profitable seasons, with a 17% even stakes return across the two seasons. This of course is reflected in the club's Over/Under 2.5 goals results. As the table below shows, betting Under 2.5 goals across the two seasons in Reading home matches would have returned you a profit of just over 1% at even stakes.

Even Stakes Return	Matches	Over	Under
Home	38	-7.60%	1.10%
Away	38	7.90%	-17.10%

Results were much different away from home, where betting Over 2.5 goals in Reading matches would have given you a profit of almost 8% at even stakes. Interestingly enough, in their final 19 matches of their second season, in which the club lost 13 matches, 12 of those 19 matches ended below 2.5 goals, returning Under backers over 19% profit at even stakes as the club was held scoreless on 11 occasions.

Against the Big & the Small

As the table below shows, Reading struggled desperately against the Top 4 clubs of those two seasons - Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal. Backing them to win in each of their 16 matches against these clubs would have seen you drop over 60% return at even stakes as the club only managed one victory, a 3-1 win at home to Liverpool in December of 2007.

Even Stakes Return	Matches	Reading	Draw	Opposition
Against the Big Four	16	-60.00%	1.90%	11.20%
Against Promoted clubs	10	22.00%	-36.00%	5.00%

Things were different when coming up against promoted clubs. In their 10 matches against promoted clubs, backing Reading would have seen you claim 22% profit at even stakes as the club won 6 of those 10 contests, losing only twice, one of which was a significant upset loss at home to the relegation destined Watford in May of 2007.

For football purests, Reading's run to conclude the 2011/2012 Championship season has been an enjoyable. Those who held firm in their faith in the club no dout make out like bandits with the bookmakers. Will their Championship form be reflected in surviving relegation next season in the Premier League? We won't indulge in cliches here about how tough a task that will be.

Congratulations Reading. Good luck in 2012/2013.

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