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Saturday 16 July 2011

The start of life in English League 2

When teams get relegated to the 4th tier of English football they find themselves one step away from the dreaded Conference League! The Conference League is "dreaded" because it is now overflowing with professional League teams all intent on getting out of it and back into League 2. So when a team is relegated from League 1 into League 2 I would have thought every effort would be made to get off to a fast start to retain the League status of the club. Teams playing in League 1 the previous season should in theory be stronger than many of the League 2 conterparts however the results of the opening fixtures do nothing to support this theory!

Looking at the past 7 seasons we see that the win % of teams relegated the previous season is not very good! Indeed taking the opening 2 fixtures for all of the teams relegated we see that in 27 of the fixtures we saw a draw. I find this an incredible stat as we saw 14 wins and 15 loses. So almost 50% of the opening 2 games played by relegated teams in League 2 end in a draw!

If we look at the opening day fixtures alone we see 53% of the games ended in a draw - this represents 15 games, we saw 8 wins and 5 loses inthe same selection of games.

In the 2007/08 season all 4 teams drew on the opening day. Since then we have seen a minimum of 2 games drawn on opening day with 3 games being drawn last season. Please note that some of the relegated teams played each other which slightly skews the stats.

Looking at the fixtures for the relegated teams.
Wimbledon V Bristol Rovers
Swindon V Crewe
Shrewsbury V Plymouth
Macclesfield V Dagenham & Redbridge

Its not out of the question that these 4 games could end in draws. I am tempted to do some research on these games to look for other factors and then possibly place some combination bets on draws occuring here in the attempt to pick up some early winnings at the start of the new football season.

I would need 2 results to come in to cover my bet and 3 or more would give me a healthy profit on the opening day.

I will post my research on these 4 specific games once I have completed it!

1 comment:

  1. I have been thinking about betting on draws recently, but not done any real research. Here are my thoughts. Often there is a favourite to win the match, then the draw and then the other team to win. So for a ROUGH example, team A and B

    A = 1/2
    Draw = 3/1
    B = 6/1

    However, sometimes there are times when the draw provides the biggest odds. I was wondering if in these games there is a potential to make some money in the long term? Looking at the four fixtures you highlight the odds on ladbrokes are.

    Wimbledon 11/8, Bristol Rovers 6/4, Draw 9/4

    Swindon 4/6, Crewe 3/1, Draw 13/5

    Shrewsbury 11/10, Plymouth 2/1, Draw 11/5

    Macclesfield 11/8, Dag & Red 8/5, Draw 11/5

    We can see that for three of the games, the draw is the largest odds. With the Swindon game being the exeption. Does this theory have legs at all?? Think this could be worth a study over the season.

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