Football Season Stats Review

[harry_rag]

I'll start off by saying this may well be of no interest to anyone other than me and I'm not sure if this is the best place to post it (it's not really "chat or banter" and isn't specific to a single league so it doesn't seem to fit in the footy section) but here's my thoughts on some stats I've been looking at across the "big 5" leagues.

• Average goals per league fairly steady at 2.81 compared to 2.8 last season. Some ups and downs in the various leagues but nothing likely to be significant.
   
• Penalties scored down from 553 to 471 (10.8% of all goals to 9.2%). I assume that's down to less being awarded rather than poorer conversion but I'll look for the pens awarded numbers. Maybe things are settling down VAR wise.
   
• Own goals fairly steady, up from 155 to 161 or 3.03% to 3.14%.
   
• Goals scored by subs up from 666 to 707 or 13.02% to 13.77%. Across the 2 seasons it's only been 9.16% in the Premier League (3 subs max) as opposed to 14.49% in the other 4 leagues (5 subs max). So we can expect an increase in England next season when the 5 sub rule is adopted. Obviously relevant to anytime goalscorer betting in terms of less goals being scored by the starting 11 when the number of subs is increased.
   
• The % of goals that had an assist was up from 66.8% to 68.2%, largely down to less penalties being scored. If you exclude own goals and penalties the % of "assisted" goals is fairly steady at 77.8% from 77.6%. So an average of 2.81 goals per games but only 1.92 assists. I have a strong feeling that most punters don't appreciate that gulf which makes the anytime assists market even more profitable for the bookies that the anytime goalscorer. I'm still tilting at backing in the goalscorer market (we'll see how that goes next season) but am also happily a seller at bigger prices. I've learnt my lesson with regard to assists though. Never a buyer or a backer be!
   

Will probably look at the bookings related stats next.

[harry_rag]

Some stats rating to bookings markets. I've added Portugal to the mix here given it's higher average.

League	Games	Yellow	Red	Av points	Av. cards	Points/card	Fouls pg	Fouls/Tackles	Pen pg	Refs used
Portugal	306	1740	120	66.67	6.08	10.97	29.93	0.99	0.35	25
Spain	380	1897	92	55.97	5.23	10.69	26.48	0.85	0.35	20
Italy	380	1696	93	50.75	4.71	10.78	26.68	0.88	0.37	45
France	380	1429	103	44.38	4.03	11.01	23.43	0.69	0.32	26
EPL	380	1299	43	37.01	3.53	10.48	20.23	0.62	0.27	22
Germany	306	1055	24	36.44	3.53	10.33	23.78	0.74	0.28	24
Total	1826	8061	451	50.32	4.66	10.71	25.09	0.80	0.32	27.00

Nothing that really surprises me in the points averages or the rankings. France has a higher ratio of reds to yellows hence the highest points per card number. I was quite surprised by how many different refs got a game in Italy! 

Not surprising that the top 3 leagues have the most fouls per game and highest fouls/tackles ratio. (Those numbers will be slightly off as the data had 1 game missing in both Germany and Portugal.)

In terms of real world betting observations, as I only ever sell bookings where the price is over 50 I haven't had many bets in France, Germany or England. For the top 3 my historical numbers look like this (not just last season).

Spain: 256 bets (140 wins and 116) losses, 69 points loss (biggest ever loss 98 points) - average sell price = 59.05

Thoughts - biggest sample size, slight overall loss (less than the single biggest loss), virtually break even so far, might as well carry on and see if it improves (still a small sample in the grand scheme of things)

Italy: 162 bets (99 wins and 63 losses), 542 points profit (biggest ever loss 81 points) - average sell price = 56.52

Thoughts - carry on, obviously!

Portugal: 24 bets (11 wins and 13 losses), 153 points loss (biggest ever loss 77 points) - average sell price = 67.79

Thoughts - carry on for now as it's such a small sample size. Not that many games get priced up in this league anyway.

I suppose I could work out a "magic number" for France/Germany/England e.g. where the price is at least x% higher than the league average but I'm not sure it's worth the effort (bookings overall is only a marginally profitable market). Maybe something to paper trade for a while come the new season.