How to treat teams with nothing to play for

As we approach the business end of the season, with titles being decided, clubs scrambling to achieve European qualification and some fighting for their lives to avoid relegation, in each of Europe’s top leagues there will be a group of teams that don’t fit into any of the aforementioned categories. They are far enough clear of the relegation zone to not be concerned, while the European spots are out of their grasp in the number of games remaining and these sides consequently seem destined for a mid-table finish.

These are the teams whose players already have one foot on the beach and popular opinion would say this is the perfect time to play these teams. So we’ve taken a look at whether or not having ‘nothing to play for’ actually has an adverse effect on their results and whether it is profitable to oppose these sides. Furthermore, since there is a general trend of goals increasing in most leagues in the final four or five games of the season, we looked at whether matches involving these teams have any consistent goals trends given their pressure free environment in the final weeks.

Looking at the ‘Big’ 20-team leagues (Premier League, La Liga, Seria A and Ligue 1) at the return from the March international break (or at the start of April in even years when there are summer tournaments) since 2006/07 we bracketed teams as having nothing to play for as long as they were at least five points behind the sixth-placed side and at least six points clear of 18^th (with some flexibility depending on the number of games remaining). Below is a table detailing the average number of points these sides accrued in the remaining games of the season when they had nothing to play for, as well as details of the profitability* of the match goals and outcome markets in these matches.
 

 
*Profitability is based on average odds and so could be improved by approximately 5% by taking best prices

On it’s own this doesn’t tell us a huge amount. However, things get more interesting when we break this down by comparing their results at home and away against teams either challenging at the top of the table or fighting for survival at the bottom.

One of the most interesting scenarios is when these teams with nothing to play for have been away at sides challenging at the top of the table. The results below are from the perspective of our middle-third sides so the Win ROI relates to the away win.
 

Here we can see that away to the top teams sides that have nothing to play for again haven’t done well. Backing the home team would have seen you in profit in all the leagues apart from Ligue 1, where there are a high number of draws and the away win is still the worst of the three options.

There is however a clearly defined ‘overs’ trend across all the leagues in the goals markets, particularly in the Premier League where backing O3.5 goals would have seen a 38% profit. In fact backing Over 3.5 Goal across all four leagues would have yielded a combined 15.3% profit. This is perhaps because the mid-table sides lack the motivation to put in the type of hard-working defensive display usually required for them to prosper in such matches and consequently at this point in the season these games tend to be more open and have more goals.

These stats are brought to your by our friends over at Football Form Labs. Check out their site and the powerful software that sits behind these comments

Tags: football, teams with nothing to play for

Category: Football trading strategies, Trading strategies