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Kevin Pullein
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Friday April 27,
2007 |
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When venues are reversed, fortunes
may also be reversed.
It is easy to make the mistake of assuming
that a team which unexpectedly defeated much stronger adversaries earlier in
the season is capable of beating them in the return fixture. Five months ago
Fulham beat Arsenal in the Premiership but that does not improve their
prospects of beating them at the Emirates on Sunday.
In the past 10
seasons the results of the first meetings between each set of opponents saw 45%
finish in home wins, 28% draws and 27% away wins. As a general rule, therefore,
we can say that 27% of away teams win. But when teams who had won at home later
played the same opponents away, the proportion of away wins was 30%, better
than before. Similarly the first set of fixtures suggests 45% of teams win at
home but, when teams who had won away later played the same opponents at home,
the proportion of home wins was 49%. |
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Those statistics show teams who won the
first meeting of a season were slightly more likely to win the second. The
reason, however, is that as a group they were slightly better than others. The
best teams in football win less often than in higher-scoring sports such as
basketball but they still win more often than not. The football teams who win
the first meeting of a season are, as a group, slightly superior to
average.
It follows that in the second meeting they will record results
which are slightly superior to average. The mistake is to think that the poorer
teams in that group who did unexpectedly well before will do so again. When
venues are reversed, fortunes may also be reversed.
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