Infinite Wisdom

Marty commented on my last post excitement about extremes being seen so far in a cross-section of football:

I would be surprised if you could NOT find a statistic at new highs or lows, given the almost infinite number of statistics one could come up with.

While there are certainly a large number of statistics that one could come up with, I was actually referring to the more major categories of which there are relatively few, i.e. Home wins, Away wins, Draws and Goal Totals rather than hunting around for any old statistical high or low. Indeed, 6:3 away wins are at a high in the EPL this season, but I’m not sure anyone is too interested in that kind of a statistic.

Even if they were, I’m not sure Marty realizes just how big a number infinity is. I’m pretty sure that however you slice and dice the statistics from match results, infinity is unlikely to need a redefinition by mathematicians any time soon.

What I meant to state was that in the nine leagues reviewed, every single one has at least one MAJOR (Win Category) statistic at either an absolute high or low, and that is surprising, even taking the low sample size of this season into account.

Counting the last 10 full seasons, and the current one, we have 11 values, and for the Home wins, the Away wins or the Draws to be either first or last in that eleven in every one of the nine leagues is unusual. Yes, you would expect a few highs and lows to be hit, especially with a low sample size to date, but not as many as we are seeing.

As the season progresses, i.e. the sample size increase, then most of the extremes will likely fall back towards their mean values, but I certainly find it interesting to delve deeper into the numbers, and find for example that home teams in the EPL, La Liga and Serie A are not winning 1:0 as much as they usually do, while in the Bundesliga they are winning by this score twice as often as expected.

Apparently a disappointing World Cup and early exit means a subsequent in a decline in 1:0 Home wins, while winning the World Cup means the opposite?

But wait - League Two is also showing a big (50%) jump in 1:0s this season, and I’m not sure too many teams there went deep into the World Cup!

Perhaps winning the World Cup mean more tired players, and more 0:0 draws. Last season the Bundesliga saw 13 such results, yet with just 20% of this season played, we have already seen 8.

Only a few midweek entries in the FTL, but with fourth-placed Randolph one of the few, I'll post a top-of-the-table update later in the week. The challenge to the numbers was withdrawn, so the table 

Having been thrashed as a no-show by the XX Draws in the first Group game of the Erskine Cup, Skeeve stopped by to say:

I was just wondering if my blog (http://bettingwithskeeve.blogspot.com/) is too portfolio oriented or you don't want to add it to your blog list because of something else. :)

Anyhow, the post about the Friendly Tipster League (I'll have some selections for the Erskine Cup round 2, don't worry:) will be online later this evening or, in the worst case scenario, tomorrow. :)

His second group game is against BettingTools.co.uk in a little over three week's time. The world awaits. I'm not sure I was aware that Skeeve has a blog, but he does and it has been added to the roll.  I saw my name mentioned a couple of times, which shows good taste anyway. We look forward to his comments on the FTL.