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A Bunch of Fives So when all is said and done, we analyse where, when and the quantity of times a ball has landed in the back of a net, past and present, or failed to, and somehow deduce why it was destined to be so. That’s the unenviable task of our resident expert Professor Statto, who brings us the benefit of his incisive intellect allied to half a century of football scholarship. And not least, his wry sense of humour.  He leaves the predictions to others, but he’ll provide you with the ammunition to sustain your challenge through your Score Five campaign. He’ll keep you up-to-date with what’s happening in the competition. He’ll lead you along byways exploring weird and wonderful facets of the game past and present, but always in his own inimitable style. Some comedian once suggested that “98% of all statistics are made up”, but the Prof. cordially invites you all to verify any information he presents – if only because he does most of the calculations in his head. Professor Statto and his amazing statistics. ====================================== Visit the Prof's 2008/09 season archives. Previous analysis Santa Delivers! Hello again pals, and welcome to this last column of the year. I trust you had a good Christmas. In the 19 days between Dec 12 and Dec 30, there were five Rounds of Premier League games. As I’m writing this on Dec. 29 half way through the final round, I can’t say conclusively which managers, teams and supporters will be happiest heading into 2010, but I’m sure that everyone associated with Birmingham City will be delirious that they have outperformed the other clubs during the month. Their return of 11 pts from five undefeated games is beyond all expectations. The only other club to avoid defeat in December is Arsenal – 10 pts, and their fifth game still to come. At the same time, Stoke, Hull and Wigan devotees must be wondering what has gone wrong. None of them has picked up more than 2 pts in this period. Maybe it has something to do with their striped shirts? Come to think of it, the other striped team, Sunderland, haven’t done much better: no wins and three draws from their last six games. That ought to cheer up all fans of Portsmouth, Bolton and West Ham…. There’s a gap opening between the top eight teams (all with 30 pts or above) and the bottom 11 (all with 23 pts or less), leaving Fulham are perched in the middle, with 27 pts. Of the lower group, only Everton are showing signs of escaping from what has the makings of a 10-way relegation battle. Expect at least one six-pointer every week from now on! Weekly highlights Pt. 1: Round 19 When I signed off last week by wishing you a bumper Christmas bundle of ScoreFive points, I had no idea just how generous the Football Santa was going to be. Boxing Day’s Round 19 was a record on several counts. As the ScoreFive Supremo has already mentioned on the front page, we have a new record single-week score, 42 pts, for which Sarajevo joins the fabled few on the Honours Board. Along with GI, his name also goes onto the list of Tenners: both players correctly predicted all the results and they thus became the ninth and tenth players to achieve this feat. With 67 players piggybacking on Magic Mike’s excellent score, a total of more than one hundred scored 33 pts or above, a depth of quality that exceeds even this season’s Round 4 when our record weekly average of 27.2 pts was set. While you couldn’t quite match that, you did set a new Perfectos mark. Here’s the nitty-gritty: basic points 21.95, and with Banker 26.07. Correct results average 59.1%, Perfectos 20.27%. Correct Bankers 82.33%. Total goals scored, 19, was the lowest of this season. In five games (at Burnley, Liverpool, Man. City, Sunderland and Wigan) your No. 1 prediction turned out to be the correct score. The No. 2 at Hull came up as well. Only at Arsenal and Birmingham were the Perfecto percentages in single digits. Top Players of Round 19 It would be easy to make a list of 30, but I’ll confine myself to 18. Firstly, the players who chose draws for their Bankers, and hit the nail on the head: Birmingham/Chelsea: BC2009 Burnley/Bolton: Rolls Roys Fulham/Spurs: Redrum, Big Phil’s B&WA, Poflorin Sunderland/Everton: Marine Wigan/Blackburn: MickD, Flatbag Well done all, especially those like Flatbag who Banked on their favourite team and got 10 pts! This week’s Top 10 is a real international gathering, with players from Bosnia/Herzegovina, India, Australia, Germany, Hong Kong and the UK. I think they all deserve a mention this week for their fantastic scores:
Then v Now Di Stefano’s Real Madrid of 1960 or Messi’s Barcelona 2009? The Best-Law-Charlton Man. Utd team of 1968 or C. Ronaldo-Rooney-Giggs & Co. in 2008? We’ve all heard these ‘Which is best?’ arguments, and of course, there’s no right answer. However, we now have a similar issue in ScoreFive. While Sarajevo’s 42 pts is a great achievement, we have to bear in mind that when Simoscy and Katona777 reached the 40-mark in that amazing Week 1 last season, they did it without the assistance of a Banker – and as they had nine correct results, there’s not much doubt they’d have picked up that extra 5 pts. So, is their 40-41 better than a 42 now? Maybe we can borrow an idea from baseball here. In 1961, when the New York Yankees slugger Roger Maris was closing in on Babe Ruth’s legendary single-season home run record of 60, a host of fans pointed out that the Babe played in the era of the 154-game season, whereas Maris had 162 games. Baseball’s head honcho, the Commissioner, decreed that if Maris passed 60, his total should appear in the record books with an asterisk (*) against it, signifying that it was achieved under different conditions. And that’s exactly what happened – 61* is what duly appeared in baseball’s almanacs for the next 40 years. I think that’s the fairest way to recognise our new top score, and I’d classify our best group as follows:
That’s just my opinion, but I’ll have a word with the Supremo and let you know how he sees it. Weekly highlights Pt. 2.: Round 20….work in progress I’m writing this when only six of Round 20’s games have been played, but there’s already a good chance we’ll see some more monster scores, particularly as this is a 12-game round. After the FA Cup weekend, there are two postponed games to be made up in midweek. At what is effectively half-time, Mani is ahead of the field with an outstanding 29 pts, which includes four Perfectos. ROCP, in second spot on 24 pts, and Bobs11 on 23 have all six results to date: Bobs also has four ’fivers, and still has his Banker game to come. Alokog, another of a group of eight players on 23, also awaits the result of his Banker. I’ll let you know how it pans out next week. The Tipsters Those of you who left your hopes in the hands of Magic Mike for Round 19 got a Christmas bonus – 10 pts above the week’s average! Mike has established a comfortable lead in the unofficial Tipsters competition after posting an excellent 34 pts in Round 19, which I consider to be remarkable as he has spent the last few weeks out of touch with the Prem action while on business in the midwest of the USA. Despite having to formulate his predictions en route, he has steadily performed above the average through the month. Here’s how the Tipsters competition stands going into Round 20:
Sequences At the weekend, I heard that poor old Stockport, anchored to the bottom of Div. 1, had just suffered their 11th consecutive loss. That’s a record for the division. What a change from three years ago, when they became the first Football League team in 118 years to record nine consecutive clean sheets. There are a few other interesting sequences in operation at present: Birmingham City: 11 games unbeaten Man Utd: 11 games since last draw Bolton W. 21 games since last clean sheet Hull City 15 games since last away win Most Frequent Scores It’s time we had an update As we all know, goals are up this season: the 500-goal plateau arrived 17 games earlier than any season in Premier league history, but before you start looking for 3-3 draws and 4-0 tonkings among next week’s Prem fixtures, I’ll just point out that since Round 13, we’ve had six successive Rounds of less than 30 goals (= three per game) after eight of the previous nine had been on or above that mark. Nevertheless, the current average (as at mid-Round 20) of 2.90, is far removed from last season’s 2.48. The table below shows this season’s scores in diminishing frequency, with last season’s for comparison in the right hand column. Points to note: 0-0s are greatly reduced – 11.05% to 4.71%. I think we can all applaud that. Games with four or more goals are up, 31.94% vs. 24.67%. Among those, games where either team scores five or more have more than doubled: 5.76% vs. 2.63%
And finally…. Don’t forget those FA Cup predictions. If you haven’t registered, now is the time…. Right, pals, that’s me finished for 2009. I’ll wish you a Happy New Year, and see you in 2010! Regards, Prof. Statto |
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