Wiser By The Week

The FTL crowd is gaining wisdom as the season progresses. Each week, the result of following the crowd has improved.

Not a very impressive win-loss ratio, but when the relatively few winners include Stoke City at Manchester City and Aston Villa at Liverpool, it doesn't need to be.

Here are this weekend's consensus picks:

A definite away bias this week, and with Aways hitting at 35% so far this season, that's reasonable and incidentally, not unexpected:

But averages can be deceiving. In the days of Division One, Away teams won 24% of matches. Since the Premier League was formed, they have won 27%, and have steadily chipped away at the long established home advantage.

The last three seasons have seen an average Away win percentage of 30.3%. This is actually quite remarkable because it is a number not seen in a single season since 1947. Away teams over this three year period have averaged 1.22 goals per game, a number not seen since England won the World Cup.

Here are the win percentages over time – notice how the Away win averages are steadily gaining over the years, and in the last three seasons in particular:

For the acca watchers out there, @ValueBankFooty is back with a five-fold Home Accumulator:

PRESTON - CAMBRIDGE - CHELTENHAM - TOTTENHAM - PLYMOUTH