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A Bunch of Fives

So when all is said and done we translate the number of times a ball has landed in the back of a net, past and present, and somehow work out why it was so obviously going to be so and what will happen in the future!! That’s the unenviable task of our resident expert Professor Statto, Nobel Prize Winner in waiting, who’s been explaining the meaning of football life and giving comfort to his followers for years.

He’ll tell you why your predictions were bound to be wrong. He’ll tell you about the most outrageous possibilities to come. He’ll tell you…But whatever he says remember:

“98% of all statistics are made up.” ~Author Unknown

Professor Statto and his amazing statistics.

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Previous analysis

Scenesetter

 

HERE WE GO, HERE WE GO, HERE WE GO....

 

Good day all,

As the Premier League season gets underway, I'd like to wish all you Score Five players the best of luck, because all the omens suggest you're going to need it.

Even those of you who can name the complete first-choice XI of every Prem team (and I know there's many of you in that category) will find it tough to correctly predict, say, seven out of the ten results every week - never mind the scores!

In June, a hundred of us gave Score Five a test drive during Euro 2008. There were 31 games with five points apiece at stake, so that's a possible 155. Have a guess at the top score.... 90 maybe? Nope. 80 then? Nah. 70, surely! Sadly not. No one even cracked the 60 barrier, which would be only a 39% success rate. As for Perfect 5's, the best anyone managed was six. Most players managed only two or three, i.e. 7-10%. Let's hope everyone knows more about the Prem than the European nations, or we'll be looking at weekly scores below 20 from the 50 possible.

Even more surprising than the low scores were the identities of some of the top performers. Going into the Final, the overall leader was Pink Gerbil, a lady "who knows nothing at all about football and supports Man. Utd" according to her chivalrous Other Half, who enrolled her solely to help with system testing. In the mini-competition among 20-odd guests from the prestigious AMNAS (A Marathon Not A Sprint) Fantasy League, another female, Ruthless, was the winner. Her football expertise hitherto was limited to advising her pals which Prem players were Fit, and that doesn't refer to their cardio-vascular systems. 

So, gents, be warned! Despite a mere handful of girls competing, they took two of the top five places. If you're already looking forward to scooping the top prize and jetting off with Virgin Atlantic at the season's end, the statistics suggest that your chances will improve significantly if you get your wife, girlfriend, mother, local barmaid, little sister or Grandma to sign up, because when it comes to deciding where to put those 0s, 1s, 2s and 3s on the Predictions Page, it looks like they have something we men don't. 

As you prepare to make your predictions, I hope you'll keep in mind that 2-1 and 1-1 are historically the most frequently occurring Premier League scores. Over the 15 seasons of the PL, the number of goals scored has been gradually reducing. Let's hope that's one statistic that is reversed this season.

As for the occurrence of each possible scoreline, see below the list of all results in the 2007-08 season 

Score	Matches	Percentages
1 - 1	52	13.3%
2 - 0	34	8.94%
0 - 1	31	8.15%
2 - 1	29	7.63%
0 - 0	26	6.84%
0 - 2	23	6.05%
1 - 2	21	5.52%
3 - 1	21	5.52%
2 - 2	17	4.47%
3 - 0	11	2.89%
4 - 1	9	2.36%
1 - 3	8	2.10%
4 - 0	8	2.10%
0 - 3	6	1.57%
3 - 2	6	1.57%
1 - 4	4	1.05%
0 - 4	4	1.05%
4 - 4	3	0.78%
2 - 3	3	0.78%
4 - 2	3	0.78%
3 - 3	2	0.52%
Other	16	4.21%

One thing I know for certain: each Score Five league or division will be won by someone who consistently gets their forecasts done, come rain or shine, despite pressures of work, study, illness, hangovers, holidays etc. Check those fixtures now....

Regards until next week.

Prof. Statto