By Brian Sears 8 September 2010 West Ham currently prop up the Premier League table, pointless after three games and with a goal difference of minus eight after defeats to Aston Villa, Bolton and Manchester United. Stoke are one place above them, also pointless, and with a goal difference of minus four, after successive defeats […]
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Coventry did it first, Newcastle did it best in the 1990s, Sheffield Wednesday did it, Manchester United aren’t great at it, and Chelsea are alone in doing it this season
By Brian Sears 27 August 2010 Ideas, ideas. Where do they come from? Sometimes they are obvious, having six six six appeal. Other times they arise in the strangest of places, like on the exercise bike at the gym. A fellow pedaller, also a football follower, was on the bike next to mine at the […]
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Six-hitters: Chelsea take over from Manchester United as Premier League goalfest kings
By Brian Sears 27 August 2010 Hitting opponents for six has been a topic of the season, with four 6-0 scorelines already, two of them by Chelsea. And according to sportingintelligence analysis of high-scoring games in the Premier League since 1992, those two 6-0s mean Chelsea have overtaken Manchester United at the head of the […]
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Liverpool: ‘Big four’ despite two decades of hurt but more turbulence ahead
By Brian Sears 17 August 2010 Liverpool bestrode the 1970s and 1980s like a colossus, and then fell off. As our main graphic shows below, they were top dogs for the best part of 20 years, winning 11 titles in 18 years in England’s elite division between 1973 and 1990, and have now gone two […]
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REVEALED: The best 20 teams in the history of the Premier League
By Brian Sears 13 August 2010 Manchester United have been by far the most successful team in the Premier League’s 18 complete seasons to date, as can be seen today in our all-time table in the features section. United have won 1,494 points from 696 games for an average of 2.15 points per game, a […]
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Two wins away from 1,500 points: Manchester United head and shoulders above the ever-present seven in the Premier League
By Brian Sears 13 August 2010 So here we are, on the eve of the 19th season of the Premier League, and Manchester United hold a lead in the all-time points table big enough to ensure they will remain top dogs even if they lose every game this campaign. They need just six more points […]
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Revealed: How the fixture computer dislikes Liverpool, and favours Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea
By Brian Sears 18 June 2010 Yesterday’s release of the fixture list for the 2010-11 season prompted a quick examination of opening-day matches in the Premier League since the top division was revamped in 1992-93, and reveals an anti-Liverpool bias and a disproportionate number of home games for the other three “big four” sides. As […]
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‘Middling England’: Capello’s men the only nation in world’s top eight punching below economic weight
By Brian Sears 17 June 2010 England are the only country ranked inside the top eight nations in the world who perform worse at football than national income levels suggest they should, according to sportingintelligence analysis. Last week, we considered how countries fared in footballing terms in relation to the population resources at their disposal. […]
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WORLD CUP 2010: Portugal punching above weight, Japan and USA ailing, England doing what resources suggest
By Brian Sears 11 June 2010 Football is a global game, arguably the only one, but of course there are some areas of the world that love it and embrace it more than others. If that weren’t the case, and nations loved the beautiful game in equal measure and played it in equal measure, then […]
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Drogba heads to African World Cup on back of historic goal feat at Chelsea
By Brian Sears 1 June 2010 If an African nation is to win the 2010 World Cup in the first edition of the tournament to be staged on African soil, then possibly the Ivory Coast will be the team to do it. The bookmakers make Sven Goran Eriksson’s ‘Les Elephants’ the favourites among the African […]
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