With just one round to go in the English Premier League, only a somewhat improbable clean sweep of ten draws next Sunday will prevent this season ending with the lowest Draw percentage in Premier League history. It may come as a shock to some, but there was actually top level football prior to 1992 and here (left) is how the current season ranks overall for all seasons where fewer than one in five matches ended as a Draw.
Draws on the final day of the season don't occur any more or less frequently than in other rounds - some seasons zero (2017-18), others as many as six (2006-07), with an overall average of frequency of 21.67% since 2000-01.
Backing the Draw in matches where the true difference between the teams is less than 25% and the ROI (using prices adjusted to an over-round of 102.5%) is 8.6% on the last day, not much different from the 9.13% over the 19 (almost) full seasons.
No surprise that, once again, there are no Big 4 or Big 6 contests on the final day of the season. The last time this happened was in 2003 when Chelsea beat Liverpool 2-1 to clinch fourth place. It's almost as if this is by design.
For those wondering about Aways, which is quite possibly no-one at all, the percentage currently stands at 33.24%. This season is already guaranteed to be the joint highest (tied with 2013-14) for Aways in top level English football ever, and just one more win will set a new high, with four more wins pushing the percentage above 33.33%.
The final day sees an average goals per game of 3.12, with a high of 37 and a low of 23, so a new record is well within reach.
1 comment:
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe the last PL round(s) does tend to have a higher number of goals than the season's average and therefore a lower expected draw frequency
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