Effect of Boxing Day Glut of Matches

The English Premier League is unique among top flights in that they play a lot of matches between Christmas and the first few days of the year while most leagues are completely off. Most seasons a team will play on Boxing Day and then again just two days later. Some seasons there will be another match just 2 or 3 days after that so they are playing 3 league matches in 6 or 7 days. This year there are matches every day from the 26th to the 30th of December. Most teams play on the 26th and then on the 28th.

Does this sequence of fixtures help any type of team? It seems like it could go either way. The good teams tend to be deeper in talent so the short amount of rest could help them as they can start fresh players that are still at a high level. On the other hand, fatigue could add some randomness to the short-rest matches. That is probably good for the bad teams since it makes upsets more likely. Perhaps the most sensible guess is that it doesn't really matter; both teams face the same strain.

To test this, I came up with a simple model with just one input for all matches and another for the matches played on short rest during the last week of the year or the first few days of the new year depending on the schedule. The data is all matches since the 1995-1996 season. The input is the difference in average goal differential for the home and away teams in all matches other than the one in question. So instead of the predictive model, I'm actually using data from after a given match took place. For example, if the match is Arsenal at home against Everton two seasons ago I'll take Arsenal's goal differential for the season, subtract off their goal differential in that match, and divide by 37. I then do the same for Everton and the input value is the difference. I then include another variable which takes on 0 for all matches other than those with short rest at the end or beginning of the calendar year. For the matches we are interested in, the value is the same as the other - the difference in average goal differential between the home and away team in all other matches. I then ran those through an ordered logit model to see if there was a difference between the short-rest matches just after boxing day and the regular ones.

In case that didn't make sense, the only thing you need to know is that if the coefficient on the short-rest variable is significant and positive, then that means that the shortened rest favors good teams. If it is significantly negative then that means that the schedule favors bad teams making them more likely to get a result against better sides. If it is very close to zero either way then that indicates that the difference in schedule from the rest of the season doesn't matter either way.

As it turns out, there is no evidence of an effect either way. The coefficient was 0.12 with a standard error of 0.167. The standard error being larger than the value of the coefficient means it is very likely that the difference is just due to randomness. The p-value is 0.472, meaning that there is about a 47% chance of values this extreme if the actual value of the coefficient is 0. That's quite high. There is no evidence of any difference between the post-Christmas group of matches and the rest of the season.

There are reasons to dislike the scheduling, I'm sure players don't like playing so frequently in such a short period of time, but it appears that fairness isn't a factor as it doesn't overly benefit or punish good or bad teams.

North London Derby Preview

The biggest London derby kicks off at 12:45 local. If you are in the US you can see it on ESPN2 at 8:30 AM Eastern.

History

Though they played before, this derby really got going in 1913 when Arsenal moved from Plumstead to Highbury. That put the teams four miles from each other. Unlike the East Lancashire Derby, these two teams have met nearly every year. Since 1950 they've been in the same division every season but one. In fact they have met 144 times in league play. In those matches, Arsenal have had the upper hand winning 59. Tottenham have won 45 and 40 were draws.

Recent history is significantly worse for Spurs. They haven't beaten Arsenal in league play in nearly 10 years, last doing so at White Hart Lane on November 7th, 1999. The last time Spurs won in Highbury in league play was in 1993. The last 10 years at home in the derby Arsenal have 8 wins and 2 draws. Those draws came last season and 4 seasons ago so I suppose you could argue that Spurs are doing better in this fixture if you like.

Form

The two clubs are level on points though Arsenal have a match in hand. Despite that and the season still being pretty young, their form is pretty different. Spurs started out on fire with four wins. They have since gone 2-1-3. To be fair, two of their three losses were at Chelsea and against Manchester United so schedule plays a role. They can't feel good about their loss last week though as it was at home against Stoke City, the first win for the Potters away from home this season. Since losing 4-2 at Manchester City, the end of two straight matchdays of losing in Manchester, Arsenal have won 4 and last week got a draw at West Ham. Expanding beyond league play, both teams won at home in the midweek against opponents from Liverpool. Spurs beat Everton 2-0 while Arsenal took care of Liverpool 2-1. The previous week Arsenal also had a disappointing 1-1 draw at AZ Alkmaar, giving up the equalizer in stoppage time in the second half.

Injuries and Suspensions

Arsenal have several injuries. Rosicky is questionable with a knee injury and Denison, Djourou, Wilshere and Walcott will all be out. Goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski picked up a thigh injury in the league cup so he should be out as well. It's unlucky for Fabianski who was playing in his first match of the year due to a knee injury.

For Spurs, Jermain Defoe is still out suspended and Modric out with a broken leg. Other concerns are Aaron Lennon and Giovani Dos Santos. Both have ankle injuries and may or may not be ready. Jonathan Woodgate and Ledley King will probably be available but have had injury issues as well.

Scoring and Conceding

Arsenal have been the best scoring team this season. They have scored 5 more goals than any other club despite playing one fewer match than most. For the Gunners, the problems look to be at the defensive end. They have conceded 13 goals, 5 more than Chelsea, 2 more than Manchester United and the same as Liverpool. Again though, that's playing one fewer match than those title contenders. It is inevitable that their goal-scoring rate will slow down as they are on an unsustainable pace. They rate as the best team at scoring but only 10th best at defending in my EPL ranking.

Looking at goal differential, Tottenham have been running a bit above expectation. The teams around them have significantly higher goal differentials. My model rates them as the 4th best scoring team, 9th best defensively and 6th best overall.

Predictions

I'm a bit in between models right now. I'm using the PLM to predict the result and the Poisson model to give me the most likely scorelines. Both models have Arsenal as huge favorites. The PLM gives them a 67% chance, Spurs just a 14% shot with the other 19% the likelihood of a draw. It gives 3-1, 3-2, 4-1, and 4-2 all about the same chance as the most likely scorelines, though each only have around a 5% chance. This is one of those matches where I don't fully trust the model. The problem is that Arsenal have been running at a ridiculous pace, almost certainly scoring more goals than expected given their skill level. They are on pace for 122 goals for the season while last year they scored only 68. I think Arsenal are still favorites but not to that extent. Something more like 50% Arsenal win and 25% for Spurs and the draw seems about right to me.

I'm making my prediction 3-1 Arsenal.

English Premier League Quarter-Time Report

I'm going to mix it up a bit and post some thoughts about the league in general since we are a quarter of the way through the season.

Biggest Surprise

Positive: Burnley
I think everyone expected the Clarets to be the caboose this season. They may well be, but currently are sitting in the middle of the table four points clear of relegation. They also have the most surprising result of the season by virtue of their 1-0 win over Manchester United.

Negative: Everton
The Toffees finished fifth last year and while I don't think anybody expected them to challenge for the league title, currently sitting 14th 7 points out of the Europa League and just 3 points clear of relegation is definitely not what they were hoping for.

Some Predictions

West Ham will not be relegated. The Hammers are currently second from the bottom and have had a bad run over the last 5 or 6 matches but I think they will be safe this season. Their schedule has been brutal so far and their results haven't been bad considering. Their goal differential is currently -4. Given their goal differential they have been running below expectation for points (see this article for that discussion) and that's without having huge wins like Arsenal have had. I think West Ham will be out of the relegation zone a month from now and out of the relegation fight well before the end of the season. I'll go so far as to say that I think they'll be closer in points to the team in 11th (midtable) than 18th (relegated). While it's certainly possible that they get the drop, I will be very surprised if that happens assuming they don't do anything rash while they are near the bottom of the table.

Burnley will slide. I said they are the surprise team of the first quarter of the season, but that's partly due to variance. They have for the most part either won close matches or been beaten by several goals. That's not a good sign when it comes to long-term prospects. I'm not going to flip the West Ham pick; Burnley have a good shot at staying up. Having said that I think they'll certainly be fighting for the right to play in the Premier League.

The fight for the league will remain competitive with 4 or more teams within striking distance at the new-year break. I'm far less sure of this prediction than the previous two. It's easy to see why as a team or two falling off makes it fail. I expect Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool to be within 5 points when they take a break after the end-of-the-year push. That's about halfway through the season. Man City and Spurs could definitely be in that mix as well, but I think both will be a bit further out. This is likely to be one of the most competitive seasons over the last few years.

Rankings:

Here are the updated rankings:



I'm starting to think that Everton are actually a lower mid-table team this season instead of a team that will fight for a spot in Europe. I still think the rankings have them too low but I'm getting less and less confident every week that they'll move up significantly. Arsenal are an interesting case as well as they have stayed on top another week. Their defense needs to improve if they are to have a shot at finishing where I have them now. If you are an Arsenal fan you'd better hope that their goal conceding slows down when their goal scoring does, because that's inevitable.

Sunday Preview: Liverpool - Manchester United

My apologies for getting this out late. I was hoping to have it Thursday but some personal things came up plus I've been working on a new model and some other stuff.

The biggest rivalry in England has no doubt lost its luster but remains one of the better rivalries in sport.

History

The clubs at each end of the Mersey are easily the two most successful clubs in England. Both have 18 domestic league titles, both have 14 domestic cup titles (though Manchester United have 11 FA Cups to Liverpool's 7). Liverpool have the edge in Europe with 5 Champions League or European Cups plus three UEFA Cups. United have 3 Champions League/European Cups and a Cup Winners' Cup.

I say the rivalry has lost its luster because most all of the above for Liverpool happened over 20 years ago. In the very likely event that Liverpool fail to win the league title this season, they will have gone 20 seasons without doing so. You could probably be a millionaire now if you'd bet just a few bucks (or quid if you like) on them having 20 dry seasons in a row. In contrast, Manchester United have won 11 league titles in that span.

Looking head-to-head, in league matches Liverpool have won 51 matches, United 58 matches and they have 43 draws. That 7-win gap is exactly from the last 19 years where Liverpool have not won the title. In that span Liverpool have won 11, United 18 and they have had 9 draws. In the last 10 seasons at Anfield Liverpool have 3 wins, Manchester United 5 wins and they played to a draw twice.

Form

Liverpool are on an historically bad run. They have lost 4 matches in a row in all competitions, which hasn't happened in more than 20 years. Looking just at the league, they have 3 wins and 2 losses in their last 5. Manchester United have been going in a more Manchester Unitedly direction. They have 10 wins and a draw in their last 11 matches in all competitions and 4 wins and a draw in their last five league matches.

Of note, Rafa Benitez has a lot of pressure on him and it's conceivable that the Liverpool manager could get fired, sacked as it were, if things go really badly tomorrow.

Injuries

Injuries are a big story, unfortunately. For Liverpool, Torres and Glen Johnson have been out and Gerrard was subbed out early in the Champions League loss due to a nagging groin injury. All three are in doubt but it looks likely that Torres and Johnson will play. On the other side, the most important injury news is that Manchester United are expected to be without Rooney due to an injured calf. Darren Fletcher and Park Ji-Sung will be out as well. Fortunately for them, Giggs and Evra are expected to be back.

Scoring and Conceding

Based on schedules and goals scored, the model rates the two teams as almost exactly even offensively. The biggest difference is at the other end. Defensively, Manchester United rate just behind Chelsea in second. Liverpool are significantly worse, ranking 7th defensively. The model says that if they played a full season at the level shown so far, Liverpool would be expected to concede 15 more goals than United.

Predictions

The model does not take form or injuries into account (something I'm working on probably with a new model). Given how extreme both are for this match, keep that in mind. It gives Liverpool a slight edge, largely due to playing at home. It says they will win 39% of the time, Manchester United 33% and they will play to a draw 28% of the time. To be honest I'm not sure how it should be adjusted. Gerrard being out or far less than 100%, Torres not being at his best assuming he plays and Liverpool's awful form and the potential chaos surrounding Rafa Benitez all go against Liverpool. On the other hand, Rooney being out is a blow for United. I think that overall probably favors Man U. I would say flipping them seems about right, so 33% for Liverpool, 39% for Man United and 28% for the draw.

For scorelines, according to the model the most likely result is a 1-1 draw with 2-1 and 1-2 after that. I think with Torres not fully fit, Gerrard and Rooney likely out, 1-0 or 0-1 are more likely to be winning scores than 2-1 and 1-2. I'll make my prediction 0-1 for Manchester United.

East Lancashire Derby: Blackburn - Burnley

By reader request, here's a preview of an interesting match, the East Lancashire Derby. If you are like me before doing research for this article, you aren't very familiar with this rivalry. While it has been overshadowed by the Merseyside, Manchester, Northeast and various London derbies, it is important historically.

Geography

I'll go ahead and start with the geography of it since many of you might not be familiar enough with England to know where these towns are. As you could guess by the name of the derby, Blackburn and Burnley are located in Lancashire, in Northwest England. The towns are quite close together - according to google the grounds for each team are just a 15 mile (24 km) drive from each other. That's a bit longer than most derbies but it's quite close none the less.

History

History is what sets this rivalry apart. It actually goes beyond just the history of the derby and is more about the history of the game itself. There were clubs before, but the first season of the Football League was 1888-1889. Twelve clubs took part. They were, in order of how they finished, Preston North End, Aston Villa, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, West Bromwich Albion, Accrington, Everton, Burnley, Derby County, Notts County and Stoke City. You could make a great case that this is the oldest derby in football.

The first East Lancashire derby took place at Turf Moor, the stadium in Burnley, on November 3, 1888. Blackburn crushed their neighbors 1-7. Later that season Blackburn won again, 4-2 at Ewood Park. An interesting side note is that both clubs still play in their original stadia so Sunday's match will take place at Ewood Park.

Unlike the more famous derbies, these teams have missed each other due to playing in different divisions. Burnley had serious problems in the 1970s and fell from the top flight all the way down to the fourth division. They have since recovered and this is their first season in the Premiership. They were last in the top flight in 1975-1976. Meanwhile, Blackburn primarily bounced between the first and second flight. As a result, they have mainly met in cup matches and in lower divisions. This is the first time the two clubs have met in the top flight since 1966. Indeed the last time the clubs met in league play at all was the 1982-1983 season. They last played in the 2004-2005 FA Cup. Blackburn won that meeting 2-1.

The time off has not made things less heated. This derby is considered one of the most intense. Like the steel city derby in Sheffield, this is probably more passionate than those of the big clubs because virtually all of the fans are from the area or at least have ties there. Because the clubs are so close together and the fanbases local, Blackburn fans know and work with Burnley fans and vice-versa. The Independent has an interesting read; former players and managers discuss the derby. It sounds pretty intense even compared to other such matches.

The results through time have stayed very close. The teams have met 91 times. Blackburn have 39 wins, Burnley have 37 and 15 times things finished even.

Analysis of Season Performance

A couple things stood out to me when I looked at their results so far. The first is probably just due to the small sample of 8 and 7 matches. Neither team has a point away from home. Combined they have 7 losses. Burnley have yet to score a goal and conceded 14 goals in four matches. At home both are much better. Burnley have 4 wins in the same number of matches and Blackburn are a respectable 2-1-1. Based on that, Blackburn look to have a big edge. Having said that, who knows given that it will be so heated at Ewood Park and the clubs are so close together.

The other thing that struck me is how tough the schedule has been for Burnley, particularly away from home. As I said they are 0-0-4 with 14 goals against and not one scored. That looks absolutely terrible and if I only told you that you'd probably say they will be playing in the Championship (odd name for the second flight if you ask me) next season. They opened the season at Stoke City, who will probably finish mid-tablish. Their other three away fixtures were just brutal: Liverpool, Chelsea and Spurs. In light of that, their away record doesn't look all that bad. Their home schedule has been pretty tough as well; the big upset of the young season was Burnley's 1-0 win over Manchester United. I think it's pretty safe to say they've played the toughest schedule in the league. Given that, they are in pretty good shape at this stage.

The models I use, Poisson for the rankings and the PLM for the predictions, take schedule into account. They rate these teams pretty similarly. At scoring Blackburn are slightly higher in 12th with the Clarets 14th. Flip that around for defense; Burnley are 16th best and Rovers 17th. Overall the model puts Blackburn 16th and Burnley one spot higher at 15th.

Predictions

As you can see from the above, the PLM has these teams very close. In fact, if they were playing at a neutral site it would have each equally likely to win. Because Blackburn are playing at home, they naturally have an edge. The PLM predicts that they have a 47% chance, Burnley a 24% chance and there is a 29% chance of a draw. 1-0 and 1-1 are the two most likely scorelines.

Something I will work on in the future is how well rivalry matches can be predicted compared to normal matches. If you believe the pundits then they can't be at all. I think that's over the top, but there certainly are differences compared to normal matches. I'm not sure I've gotten a single guess correct, but I'll go with a 2-1 win for the home side.

English Premier League Review - Matchday 7.5

My in-laws made a late decision to visit this weekend and for the next couple days, plus I am getting ready for the World Cup Qualification articles, so I'll be quick with this.

Results:
Arsenal 6 - 2 Blackburn
Bolton 2 - 2 Tottenham
Burnley 2 - 1 Birmingham
Chelsea 2 - 0 Liverpool
Everton 1 - 1 Stoke
Hull 2 - 1 Wigan
Man Utd 2 - 2 Sunderland
West Ham 2 - 2 Fulham
Wolverhampton 0 - 1 Portsmouth


I watched a lot of Manchester United - Sunderland, which to be honest I wasn't expecting. I hadn't seen Sunderland play this season, but based on their results and how well Man U had played I thought it would be the kind of match where non-Manchester United fans such as myself would quickly change the channel. I was pleasantly surprised with the way the match went as well as with Sunderland's play. They were definitely the better team out there and deserved the three points. United fans should, and based on what I've read do, feel fortunate with the result even though it is two points less than they expected Friday night.

The other match I watched in was Chelsea - Liverpool. I only saw the second half, but in my view Chelsea simply outclassed the scousers. Torres and Gerrard both looked lost out there and it seemed liked Chelsea controlled play. Based on what I've read of the match it seems like Liverpool were better in the first half, so I guess I caught the bad half for them. They certainly can't play like they did in the second and still be in the hunt for the title.

The only other match that I feel warrants a comment is Wolverhampton losing at home to Portsmouth. While that is Portsmouth's first points of the season, it puts them just four back of the Wanderers. That should make the relegation battle more interesting.

Rankings



Arsenal? Really?

One of my fears with putting up my rankings this early is that I would turn away readers because things could look ludicrous. While I am exaggerating a bit, this is one of those cases. I think Arsenal are a good team and fully expect them to finish in one of the 4 Champions League spots with a great shot at the top 3, which sends a team automatically to the group stage. Them winning the league I don't expect, but it wouldn't be the biggest surprise. None the less, I think them in the top spot demonstrates the downside of these sorts of rankings at this stage of the season.

The rankings say the following: if we played a full season (starting over) at the level the results thus far have indicated, then what would be the expected goal differential for each team? Their results thus far have been unsustainably good from a goal-differential perspective. They've played 3 home matches, admittedly against mediocre or worse opponents, and won 4-0, 4-1 and 6-2. Away from home they have a 1-6 win over Everton, a 2-1 loss at Old Trafford, a 4-2 loss at Man City and a 0-1 win at Fulham. So they've had spectacular home results, one similarly ridiculous away win, and three away matches that don't look great or bad. At some point it's inevitable that they will have some "bad" matches and only beat weak opponents by a goal. At that point they will take a serious dive in the eyes of the model and their ranking will be closer to where they probably are. Then again, I suppose it's possible that they really are this good at scoring. I think this is extremely unlikely though. At some point if they keep putting up 4+ goals just about every match we'll have to give them credit for being a ridiculously good team at scoring, but that day is still several matches off.

English Premier League - September 28

The obvious place to start this week is with Chelsea who lost 3-1 at Wigan. Wigan went up 1-0 on a Titus Bramble header off a short corner in the 17th minute. That lead held for the first half. Two minutes into the second half, Malouda made a nice short run and through traffic found Drogba well inside the area. Drogba shot it on his first touch and it looked like the Wigan goalkeeper had it, he certainly should have, but it managed to squirm in. The match really turned on its head 4 minutes later when Petr Cech was sent off after he took down Rodallega who was running past him after doing the same to the Chelsea defense. Rodallega converted the penalty and Wigan never looked back. Chelsea actually went down to 9 men because they had used up their subs and Cole went off injured in the 86th minute. Wigan got the dagger in stoppage time when Scharner tapped in a cross from Figueroa. That and Burnley 1 - 0 Manchester United are surely the two surprising results of the short season. This was the first Premiership win by Wigan over the four big clubs.

The other results quite frankly were not surprising. Manchester United went top of the table with a 0-2 win in Stoke-On-Trent. That kind of win is big as City are looking like an actual Premiership side and will probably get some results against the big clubs at home. Berbatov and O'Shea were the scorers. Arsenal got a similar result with a 0-1 win against Fulham. Van Persie broke the deadlock early in the second half. Liverpool thrashed Hull City 6-1. Torres got a hat trick, Babel got two and Gerrard also made the scoresheet. Keane did one better than Torres, getting 4 goals in a 5-0 win for Spurs over Burnley.

In the match that delayed this report for a day, Manchester City beat West Ham 3-1 on Monday. Tevez put City up early. Petrov got through on the left and near the goal line just inside the penalty area played a great ball across to Tevez who was standing 5 yards in front of the goal. It went just in front of the keeper and would have been harder for Tevez to miss than make. The next few minutes it looked like it would be all over as Tevez had a couple great scoring chances, but neither shot went on goal. Despite getting thoroughly outplayed, West Ham managed to score a 24th minute goal off a set piece when City couldn't clear the ball out of the box. 7 minutes later Petrov put City back in front with a shot to the far post on a set piece. The goalkeeper may not have had a great view, but really should have done better as he got caught cheating to the near post. While there wasn't much in doubt, Tevez sealed it with a 61st minute goal on a header off a set piece. It was close, but in my view he was offside.

Other matches:
Birmingham 1 - 2 Bolton
Portsmouth 0 - 1 Everton
Blackburn 2 - 1 Aston Villa
Sunderland 5 - 2 Wolverhampton Wanderers

Power Rankings


GD Rank: offensive ranking
GA Rank: defensive ranking
EGD: expected goal difference if all teams started over and played a full season at the level of play of the results so far.

A couple teams I want to comment on. Firstly, I think the model underrates Everton. The reason for this is their schedule. They lost 6-1 to Arsenal, and since then have given up 4 goals in 5 matches. The model rates them as the worst defensive team because other than Arsenal they have played teams that are weak offensively. As a result of that, the model sees 10 goals conceded, a number around average, against what is easily the weakest set of opponents in terms of attacking strength that any team in the league has faced. This reveals a drawback of the model I touched on before - it considers all goals equally because it uses aggregate data. I'm still working on a better model on that end of things. Based on the results, I'd say Everton are a mid-table club. Chelsea is a bit surprising at 6th considering they are tied on points for first in the league standings. Their schedule has been the weakest of the top 6, so it makes sense.

If you are a fan of any club other than Manchester United, you can't like the rankings much as they look head and shoulders above the rest of the pack. They are the best attacking and defending team according to the model and have an expected goal difference that is 15 goals higher than second-best Arsenal. They'll definitely slip up and the expected goal differential will be somewhere more reasonable. It's also clear, however, that Arsenal and Liverpool will slow down and their incredible scoring rates will drop as well. I'm certainly not calling the league for Manchester United right now or anything close to that, but they have been the best team in the league over the seven matches.

Manchester Derby Post-Match Summary and Thoughts

Having just finished rewatching the match, here is a summary of the derby and some thoughts.

For those that didn't see it, the match started off extremely shaky for City. Bridge had a horribly headed clearance in the first minute. The next minute was even worse as Evra ran into the box completely unmarked on a throw in. He took the ball down to the goal line and played it back in to Rooney at the corner of the six-yard box. There were a couple defenders near him, but he had space to play the ball between their desperate sliding challenges and bury it. For the next 12 or so minutes, it went back and forth with United looking the better of the two sides. In the 16th minute, United keeper Foster tried to play a ball to the outside of the box back in to pick it up when Carlos Tevez stole the ball off him. Tevez played the ball back to Barry who put it between the near post and Vidic who was where you would normally see the goalkeeper. For the rest of the first half things were pretty even and each team failed to convert a clear chance with Berbatov heading over the bar right in front of goal and Tevez hitting the post from inside the box.

The second half started similarly to the first. United scored three minutes in on a header by Fletcher on a floating cross from Giggs. A few minutes later after Given made a nice save on a great scoring chance by Giggs, City drew level on a fantastic shot by Bellamy from just outside the area. The next 28 minutes United completely dominated getting several clear chances. Given made three big reaction saves stopping two Berbatov headers and a very powerful Giggs shot from the edge of the area. United finally broke through in the 80th minute on another header by Darren Fletcher putting in a cross from Giggs - this time off a set piece. City didn't look like equalizing until the 89th minute when Rio Ferdinand played an absolutely terrible ball right to Ireland (I think, couldn't quite tell) who played it through to Bellamy who sprinted past Ferdinand and slotted it home behind Foster. Deep into stoppage time (some would argue too deep, see below) after a free kick was cleared, Giggs spotted substitute Michael Owen open in the box. Owen put it away and sealed the 4-3 win for United.

Initial Impressions

As I mainly follow the Spanish league, I don't usually watch a lot of Premier League games. I suspect that will change due to writing this blog. When I do, I'm always impressed with the atmosphere and this match was no exception. In Spain the singing and chanting is mostly done by the home-side's ultras, whereas it seems to be everyone in England. Another common thought I have when watching English matches is how much more direct the style of play is compared to Spain. As for the match itself, I thought both teams made a lot more mistakes than I had expected. All four of United's goals featured awful defending by City. Evra was allowed to just run into the area unmarked on a throw in, Fletcher twice wasn't properly marked nor was a defender in good position to clear the cross and Owen was left alone in goal with two defenders 5 yards away from him ball watching. City's first goal came as a result of a goalkeeper mistake that should not happen even at the youth level. Foster tried to dribble the ball into the area to pick it up when he clearly should have just banged it out. When Tevez is on the other team you can't mess around back there because the guy doesn't stop chasing the ball. The second goal for City was the only one of the match that didn't result from a bad play by the other team. City's third goal came as a result of Ferdinand giving away the ball and then failing to chase down Bellamy. As I said in preview, I think these teams are both good defensively. United last year were in my view the best in the world defensively. It was pretty shocking to see that kind of display.

On the positive side, it's clear that both sides are very good. I have a lot of respect for Rooney and Tevez. I can't think of two harder-working attacking players. I think City will be a lot better once Adebayor comes back and they can play Tevez in a deeper role. Bellamy obviously had a great game as well. For United, I thought Evra was particularly strong down the left. He also pressured Tevez late in the half and I'm sure played a role in his shot going into the bar instead of the goal. To be honest I didn't think Giggs was all that good in the match but he played a huge part in the last three United goals with two crosses that were headed in and then picking out Owen for the last goal. If I had to choose a man of the match it might be Shay Given. It's strange to give it to a goalkeeper when his side gives up 4 goals but I don't think you can say any were his fault and he kept his team in the match during the second half which United otherwise dominated. Obviously Fletcher is the easy choice with two goals in his team's win.

As far as the referee goes, I think he did a good job overall. Other than the timing controversy at the end, he was under the radar, which is what you're looking for. Something that needs mentioning is that the assistant referee should have signaled that Berbatov was offside on a great scoring chance in the first half. Berbatov put it over but was in great position and would have scored if he'd put it almost anywhere on target. The replay showed that he was well offside. Since it was a set piece, it should have been an easy call. It's the sort of thing that isn't considered a big deal because the ball didn't go in, but not getting that call right is terrible because a goal is scored in that situation frequently. We shouldn't give him a pass because Berbatov missed the header.

That brings us to the controversy. In the 89th or 90th minute the fourth referee signaled four minutes. Michael Owen's goal came a full five and a half minutes into stoppage time. Here's a rundown of what happened in the last stages:
90:00 - Bellamy scores for Man City
92:00 - Carrick is subbed on for Anderson
94:45 - a United player is fouled about 7 yards on the United attacking side of the center line
95:13 - Rooney takes a free kick
95:15 - it is cleared by Stephen Ireland between the penalty area and the 10-yard arc for penalty kicks
95:17 - it is headed further by a City player which I think is Tevez. Given the grass patterns he appears to be 36 yards out.
95:19 - Rooney sends it back into the area
95:22 - the ball is headed out by a City defender just outside the area, it goes to Giggs roughly 33 yards out
95:23 - Giggs plays the ball to Owen who is open in the area
95:27 - Owen scores

The amount of stoppage time to be added is at the sole discretion of the referee. In my view he should have added an extra minute to stoppage time as a result of the goal and substitution. I also think he should have extended the match to allow United to take the free kick as Rooney did at 95:13. I think that is pretty standard and most referees would have done the same. I do think he should have ended the match once that free kick was cleared, and I think it would be called there most of the time by other referees. If not there then the second clearance at 95:22 would have been the standard place to whistle it dead. Obviously everything would be different with a different referee, but I think well over half the time a random ref would have ended the match before the last goal.

Having said that, I don't think it was completely outrageous. As I said, it's up to the referees discretion. There are differences when it comes to how much time individual refs add. Also important is that it could have been the case that he had wanted to add something closer to four and a half minutes than four originally. There's nothing in the rules saying that an integer number of minutes must be added, but they do only display whole numbers on the board. If that's the case, then you can throw out everything I said above because the extra goal and substitution would push stoppage time up to 95:30 instead of 95:00. I am a traditionalist and would like for the timing of the match to remain as it is now, but controversies like this are the downside of having this timing system instead of something like what is used in basketball.

Weekend Preview: Manchester Derby

The biggest match of the weekend in my view is Manchester United versus Manchester City at Old Trafford on Sunday. The match kicks off at 1:30 in the afternoon locally, that's 14:30 for most of continental Europe, 8:30 in the morning for those on the East coast of the United States and bright (or still dark perhaps) and early at 5:30 in the morning for those of us on the left coast. Unfortunately if you're in the United States it's only available on Setanta so it may be a good idea to hit up a pub for breakfast.

Because the season is so young, much of my preview of the match is based on last year.

Home and Away

Old Trafford was good to United last year. They were the best club in the Premiership at home and "only" third best on the road. While they actually conceded two more goals at home compared to the road on the whole season, they scored 18 more, nearly one more per match, in front of the home crowd. City last year were the club with the biggest difference between home and away results. They were the third best team at home and 17th best on the road. If there was something to that other than just variance and it carries over to this year, it points to Manchester United starting out with an edge based solely on the location of the match.

Recent Form

At this point form is just all results so far.
United: WLWWW
City: WWWW

Both teams are doing pretty well. The only blemish was a surprising 1-0 defeat by United at newly-promoted Burnley. Cup competitions gone similarly - City won 0-2 at Crystal Palace in the league cup while United won 0-1 against Besiktas in the Champions League. Nothing surprising here.

Something important for this match is that Adebayor will not play. He was given a three match ban for stomping on van Persie and his provocative goal celebration where he ran the length of the pitch kneel in celebration in front of the Arsenal supporters.

Scoring and Conceding

Last season Manchester United were tied with Chelsea as best defensive team and second best scoring team, 9 goals behind Liverpool. Manchester City were in the middle of the pack defensively and scored the fifth most goals. City scored 10 fewer goals for the season, 0.26 per game, and allowed 26 more goals, 0.68 per match. In short, Manchester United were incredibly good defensively, the best in Europe in my opinion, and very good at scoring while City were good offensively but mediocre defensively.

Last summer there were a lot of changes at both clubs. Cristiano Ronaldo moved from Manchester United to Real Madrid. It's very tough to replace a player of his quality and they didn't do so by bringing in another big name. Sir Alex Ferguson added
Michael Owen for free, paid out 18 million euros for winger Antonio Valencia and picked up promising 20-year old winger Gabriel Obertan for 3.5 million. City were a lot more busy. They brought in three defenders, Sylvinho, Lescott and Toure, midfielder Barry and three attacking players in Adebayor, Tevez and Roque Santa Cruz. As far as Man City goes, I think the situation is similar to what I wrote about Real Madrid. Bringing in Tevez and Adebayor was huge and got all the attention, but Toure, Lescott and Barry will be the signings that make a difference if City are to compete for the league and finish in a Champions League spot.

Looking at the short season thus far, the two teams are the best defensive teams in the league. The poisson model puts United best and City second best. In scoring, I have Manchester United fifth best and City 8th. Take those figures with a grain of salt as the sample sizes are ridiculously small and an extra goal here or there would make a huge difference at this point. Based on last year's results, this year's results so far, and the summer transfers I'd say that both teams should be near the top both offensively and defensively.

Predictions

As I said, I'm not sure this prediction is reliable given how few matches have been played. The Poisson model predicts a low-scoring affair with 0-0 the most likely scoreline. It gives United a 39% chance to win, City a 21% shot and predicts a draw 40% of the time.

I'll predict 1-0 to Manchester United.

Is Performance in Close Matches Luck or Skill? (Goal Diff and Points - Part 3)

Note: Here are parts one and two of this series. I strongly recommend reading those before reading this, though I give a summary at the beginning if you just want to get to the business of which teams have gotten lucky and/or been clutch over the last several years.

In the first article I discussed how well a team's number of league points at the end of the season corresponds to their goal differential. The answer was extremely well. In the second article I discussed why a team would over or under perform relative to their goal differential. This comes down to how good their results were in close matches compared to teams that are similarly skilled, at least as judged by their goal differential. I then discussed why some teams would getter better results than others.

The question at hand is whether there is a "close-match skill" that causes some teams to play better when it matters most compared to teams of the same skill level otherwise.

Correlation

To test this, I used the same data set as before. It includes every season of the Spanish Primera Division from 1987-1988 to 1994-1995 and from 1997-1998 to 2008-2009. I also have the English Premier League for all seasons since 1995-1996 and the Serie A since 2004-2005. I believe this to be all seasons for the three leagues in which they had 20 teams. For the first 8 seasons of La Liga I converted the points so that a win would be worth 3 points as it is today instead of 2 as it was then.

Using this data I looked at the correlation between how many points above or below goal-differential expectation each team gets a given season and the next season. In footballing terms this statistic will tell us if a team's performance in close matches is consistent from one season to the next. A large positive figure would indicate that teams doing particularly well in important situations this year will tend to also do so next year. A large negative value would mean that teams that do well for their skill level this year will tend to be bad at that next year. A value close to zero would tell us that performance in close matches this year means nothing as far as next year goes. In other words, values close to zero mean that there is no evidence that performing especially well in crucial situations is anything other than luck.

Here is the correlation coefficient for each of the three leagues:
English Premier League: -0.0218 (sample size 240)
Spanish Primera Division: 0.05579 (sample size 357)
Italian Serie A: 0.02312 (sample size 73)

As you can see these values are all very close to zero. In fact, the correlation coefficient for the Premiership is negative! For the fellow nerds out there, the p-values for the one-sided t-test were 0.147 for the Spanish league and 0.423 for the Serie A. The correlation for the Spanish league is in the ballpark of being statistically significant but is not at the usual 5% level, or even at 10%. Given the large sample size, it's safe to conclude that the correlation is effectively 0. There is no evidence that teams overperforming their goal-differential expectation can be attributed to anything other than luck, or at least anything that would carry over from one season to another.

A Look At Individual Clubs

While that is very conclusive, let's look at how different teams have done compared to their goal-differential expectation. For all teams in England with at least 10 seasons in the sample, here is a chart with the average difference between actual points and goal-differential expectation each season.



Liverpool have gotten an average of 1.5 fewer points than their goal-differential suggests that they should. At the other end, West Ham have managed to outperform their expectation by nearly 3 points a season. That Manchester United have done better than expectation might be the least shocking thing I have uncovered in all of my research for this blog.

Looking at the numbers, I think the chart is more evidence that there isn't skill involved in outperforming your goal-differential - that it's just luck. One reason for this is that the top teams are all over the place. Admittedly, Manchester United are near the top and are easily the best club in England over the sample. Other than them though, Chelsea and Arsenal have run close to average, while Liverpool are well below average.

On the flip side, West Ham United are the team that has been most successful compared to their skill level! While they haven't been the worst club to see the top flight, a look at them over the years of the sample gives one no reason to think that they have something that makes them the best team in close matches compared to their quality. They went through 4 managers during that time and were relegated. The relegation isn't really relevant as absolute level isn't what we're looking at but how well a team does in close games compared to their skill level. To me going through four managers is important. It would be easy to point to Alex Ferguson as the reason for Manchester United outperforming their goal-differential expectation, but then why would a club that sacked four managers in that time do even better compared to their expectation?

Here is the list for La Liga. I included all teams with at least 10 seasons in the sample:



Once again, we have a similar pattern. Strong teams such as Athletic Bilbao and Real Madrid are near the top but then again there are big clubs like Barcelona and Atletico de Madrid at the other end. Sporting Gijon is similar to West Ham. Again, just glancing at the list of teams that over and underperformed, it seems to be mostly luck, if not all.

For completeness here's the chart for the Serie A:



Just like the others it features a huge club at or near the top and bottom. Reggina plays the role of club that has seriously over performed in close matches for no obvious reason other than luck. Looking at both this and the Premieship data, I found it interesting that Liverpool and AC Milan have under performed in their leagues. Both have a reputation for grinding out wins in cup competitions, most notably the Champions League, even when playing against superior opponents. Apparently those reputations didn't help them any in those spots in league fixtures.

Conclusion

Looking at points earned compared to the goal-differential expectation from one season to the next there is no correlation. Teams that over perform in close matches this season are no more likely to do so next year than those that under performed. In other words, there is no evidence that some teams are able to step up in important situations better than others. Looking at which teams have historically done better or worse than their goal-differential expectation helps to confirm this. While for each of the three leagues there is a team or two near the top that one might think could have this ability to step up, there are other teams at the bottom that it seems should also have it. As importantly, there are teams that have overperformed that have lacked consistency in management and squad so it seems they couldn't have done so if the ability to rise to the occasion were real, or at least an important factor.


Scoring and being scored on are based on a combination of skill and luck, but having the goals come at the right time seems to be all luck.