Why Are Fewer Goals Scored At The End Of The Premiership Season?
This piece was written prior to the 2010-2011 season.
Football fans love goals. Goals are what keep us coming back for more.
However, as a bettor you have to be able to push the goal loving feelings out of your mind before placing a bet. First, you need to clear your head of all the very natural emotions which are attached to goals. Secondly, you should look at how statistics can infuse more value to your bets.
There is always a greater urge to back higher numbers of goals in a game - this is simply human nature
There is always a greater urge to back higher numbers of goals in a game, especially matches you watch without any particular team bias, this is simply human nature. But when should you follow that goal loving instinct? And when should a more conservative approach takeover your thinking?
So, how many goals are scored in the Premiership?
We were curious to learn about this, so we went to Premierleague.com and found some stats. We used these data to analyse the number of goals per game over the course of this English Premier League season to see if we can establish a common trend and try to and apply rhyme and reason to our findings.
For the last three Premier League seasons the average number of goals has been 2.6, 2.6 and 2.5.
Although world class strikers often are bought by the Premiership clubs, the number of goals in the Premier League is remarkably stable: for the last three Premier League seasons the average number of goals has been 2.6, 2.6 and 2.5.
Strikers Are Better in the Fall
In the first graph you can see the average number of goals scored per game. After a quiet opening of the season, Rooney, Drogba, Torres and the other players hit around the 3.0 goals per game for a sustained period of time.
Given that this is a league which traditionally averages around the 2.5 mark once the dust has settled on a season it is fair to say that there was a goal frenzied start to this 2009/2010 season, but why?
Many goals in the beginning of the season, eh - but why?
One of the most logical reasons for this is the absence of a major international tournament in the preceding summer. This means that the majority of players have entered the season in a rejuvenated and robust physical condition and have been able to express their skills and talents to the maximum of their ability.
Are Strikers More Important Than Defenders?
However, the same theory can be applied to defenders and goalkeepers who have also enjoyed a summer of rest. Why then does it not transpire that there are fewer goals? Is this a clear sign that attackers are the most important factor in a game of football? Perhaps an obvious justification, if any was needed, as to why goal scorers and creative players command the bigger transfer fees.
Numbers Talk: Goals Decrease Throughout The Season
In the second graph we have discounted the weeks in which small and large numbers of games have been played. This way we can keep the sample size of a similar amount throughout the season and thus obtain a more accurate assessment of the goal scoring trend.
Aside from one or two peaks and troughs we can now see clearly that there is a decreasing average number of goals per game as the season progresses. The red line of best fit shows it even more clearly.
This can be partly explained by the fact that there was an unusually high average at the beginning of the season. And as the season progresses the fatigue factor also becomes noticeable. Is it then arguable that defenders are either fitter or perhaps cleverer than their attacking minded opponents?
Looking at the graph defenders do seem to be getting on top of things later in the season. Perhaps this is because they are learning how to play against and nullify the attackers who had such advantage at the beginning of the season.
Our Advice: Bet On Under 2.5 Goals In The End Of The Season
In order to get the truest of graphs and thus the most useful of information we need to make one more adjustment to our data set. From week to week a score line which is entirely out of the ordinary can occur. A freak result if you like.
Take Tottenham’s 9-1 drubbing of Wigan for example. These sorts of results do not help us analyse a trend, they are an anomaly in the statistical analyses. The third graph disregards these abnormalities by discounting both the highest and lowest scoring games of each week.
Throughout the Premier League season there is a tipping point where it makes more sense to bet under 2.5 goals than over.
Now we have our clearest and most accurate indication of the number of goals per game decreasing throughout the season. This is now a dataset we can use to help us make decisions in our day to day betting.
When it comes to goal betting markets the Over/Under 2.5 is considered the most popular. Almost every bookmaker will offer this bet as part of their betting package to punters. It is also the betting market which is most applicable to the graphs we have produced here.
Bets And Odds
Other mitigating factors should also be considered. The odds at which you back these selections is certainly a hugely important component that should be considered before placing your bet. However, despite this not being a fool proof system (no such thing exists) it is clear that we should be looking to back the over 2.5 goals selection toward the beginning of a season and gradually switching to the under 2.5 goals toward the conclusion.
If you liked this article you might also like:
What is home field advantage really worth?
Why do prices drop on favourites and the over close to kickoff?
Which Premier League clubs were the best betting value in 2010-2011?
How the size of your bookmakers commission impacts your betting bank
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