Barclays Premier League results analysis

Hashfootery is about guessing scores, right? Surely you can use an analysis of historical results to help? Well, yes - you can certainly crunch the numbers and inform your forecasts with what are the most likely Premier League scorelines, but you probably have a feeling for those already: 0-0, 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-0. Ultimately you have to use a bit of skill and guesswork to fine-tune your prediction and then cross your fingers and hope some good fortune goes your way. There are any number of reasonable factors you can start considering:

  • manager under pressure
  • evening kickoff on a chilly Monday night
  • mysterious dip in Chelsea form
  • team selection
  • what Lawro says

I defy anyone to ignore those sort of factors, relying solely on a probabilistic approach based on the charts below and out-perform the leading lights of the hashfootery standings any given month.

2009/10

Using the Premier League results matrix from the appropriate page on Wikipedia, I have analysed the distribution of scorelines from the 2009/10 season. It turns out that 2-1 was the most frequent outcome, with approximately 1 in 9 games finishing with that result.

2009-10 Premier league analysis

2010/11

Most pundits agree that the current season has produced more unexpected scorelines than usual with more draws. The results distribution as of 16 Jan 2011 shows that approximately 1 in 7 matches have finished 1-1.

2010-11 Premier league analysis

Gerry Mulvenna
20 January 2011