By Brian Sears 2 April 2010 So the Premier League enters the home straight for another season and statistical seers (not to mention Sears) strive to grab a passing morsel of numerical nuance from their historical data. Most clubs have but six games to go. As a statistician trying to work out what’s next (snow, […]

By Brian Sears 31 March 2010 Many things in life are uncertain, from the changing of the seasons (these days) to whether the world will explode when the Large Hadron Collider really gets a move on, although reports of the initial collision of protons at record energy levels in a tube beneath Switzerland are encouraging. […]

By Brian Sears 26 March 2010 As every musical statto knows, Queen’s 1984 hit single, ‘It’s a Hard Life’, derives in part from the Leoncavallo opera, ‘Pagliacci’, and close to the start of the song, Freddie Mercury sings: This is a tricky situation I’ve only got myself to blame It’s just a simple fact of […]

By Brian Sears 19 March 2010 Liverpool, beware. Premier League goal scoring this season remains on course to hit record heights, and Liverpool’s opponents this weekend, Manchester United, remain one of three clubs still in the hunt for the Holy Grail-esque “50 goals at home in a Premier League season”. Now some people might argue […]

By Brian Sears 12 March 2010 Some things in life are barely credible, and some are so incredible you’d need your head examined if you fell for them. And in the tier above that, you have Chelsea’s record of consistency in the Premier League. Except their consistency is a provable fact of extraordinary quality. We’re […]

By Brian Sears 9 March 2010 English football crowds outside the Premier League are on course to defy the worst recession in decades and hit a 50-year high, with large credit due to the Championship table-toppers, Newcastle United, and their League One counterparts, Norwich City. According to statistical projections by sportingintelligence, crowds in the Football […]

By Brian Sears 5 March 2010 If we define a nail-biting game as one in which the result could be changed with the last kick of the match, then they’re becoming rarer in the Premier League. Never before this season has the percentage of nail-biters been as low as this campaign. In the first season […]

By Brian Sears 26 February 2010 Never before in Premier League history have there been so many “big cushion” wins, and by that I mean wins by three clear goals or more. Already this season there have been 50 of them altogether among 196 wins by all teams combined. In the whole of last season […]

By Brian Sears 19 February 2010 Occasionally in this life as a statistician, you unearth a statistical gem so lovely that you want to pop it into your anorak pocket, go for a stroll around town in the splendid late-winter sunshine, and share it with everyone you meet. Today, dear readers, is such a day. […]

By Brian Sears 10 February 2010 Omens, omens. The last time Chelsea and Cardiff met in an FA Cup match (in 1927), we all know what else happened that year. That’s right. Saudi Arabia became independent of the United Kingdom. (And Cardiff went on to win the Cup). If you’re interested in such ephemera and […]