Goal fest
More amazing score lines in the premier league yesterday, but an interesting peice of psychology appears to be at hand.
A friend of mine sent me a text last night to exclaim just how many goals there had been this season, to which I replied, ‘It feels like it doesn’t it’. There-in ensued an argument about whether there actually had been more goals or not.
Yesterday we had a 3-4 and a 7-3, on boxing day an 8-0. Both very high numbers of goals considered the long term average is 2.50-2.60 goals. But how does this compare to last season?
So far this season we have played 196 out of 380 games and 561 goals have been scored, an average of 2.86 goals per game, above the long term average. Yes, there have been more goals than ‘average’, but only around 0.20 a game. Last season up to 3/1/2012 there were 197 games played. In those 197 games there where 558 goals or an average of 2.83 goals per game.
So in reality my friend was right, there have been more goals this season in total and on average. But by the slimmest of margins, just 0.03 per game on average. Any of the recent ‘big’ scorelines was enough to tip that number in favour of this year. That puts things in perspective!
One thing that is very different this year is that the variability of the lead, something I measure on each match is much higher. Basically this means that if you traded at random on football this year you should be seeing above average results, you win more often. This may have fooled a few people into thinking they have a winning system this year when in fact, it’s just the way things have played out in the favour of certain strategies.
Anyhow, we hope it continues!
Category: Football trading strategies
