By Brian Sears  12 February 2016 Leicester’s extraordinary Premier League season is a breath of fresh air especially to fans of ‘smaller’ clubs who dream it might be possible, one day, for their club to copy. The scale of achievement, being widely discussed, can be put in further context by some figures that show a) the margin by […]

By Brian Sears  22 January 2016 Arsenal enter the weekend at the top of the Premier League table but here comes an acid test of their title credentials, a game against Chelsea. The Gunners’ recent record against Chelsea has been poor. Worse than poor. Awful. Wretched. Lousy. Miserable. Paltry. Or shocking, hopeless, inadequate, tortured (if you want to […]

By Brian Sears  15 January 2016 Many fans in the Premier League this season have had to come to terms with their teams finding it harder to gain points on home soil. The statistics show home wins are running at an all-time low, or 39 per cent of matches to be precise. The lowest home win percentage in any completed […]

By Brian Sears 24 December 2015 Christmas is a time for reflection and a time to look forward and neither offers any merriment for Aston Villa. Ten points away from safety as things stand, they can look to no precedent in the Premier League era (the ‘monied’ era, since 1992) for a club with single-digit points at Christmas […]

By Brian Sears 4 December 2015 In Arsene Wenger’s reign as the manager of Arsenal they have gained as many as 36 Premier League points from the first 14 games of a season (in 2007-08) and as few as 21 (in 2012-13) but the average for the Wenger era is 27. That’s the amount they’ve got so far this […]

Welcome to the home page of Sportingintelligence‘s guide to the 2016 FIFA presidential election. JAMES CORBETT explains the rationale for it below. The vote is scheduled for 26 February and as it approaches this regularly updated guide will be brought to you by seasoned FIFA-watchers, expert observers, reform advocates and multiple contributors including Corbett, Roger Pielke Jnr, […]

Part of Sportingintelligence’s guide to the 2016 FIFA presidential election: HOME PAGE here . This page contains a regularly updated interactive timeline of events (top, most recent major event in the election first); a list of recommended people to follow for updates; a list of links to key ‘players’ (including institutions, sponsors, unions and reform […]

By Brian Sears 23 October 2015 Three derbies in the Premier League this weekend have seen recent trends that highlight a turning of the tide between the teams involved. One team in each of the three pairings was clearly a better or stronger or competitive side in their first tranche of meetings in the Premier […]

By Brian Sears 16 October 2015 None of the previous Premier League champions – and 23 of them since the inaugural 1992-93 breakaway season is a fair sized sample – won fewer than 14 points from their first eight games before going on to take the title. And only two managed it after winning as few as 14 points, […]

By Brian Sears 18 September 2015 Almost a month ago, we highlighted how the statistical evidence suggested Chelsea had blown their title hopes after two games. Now, five games into the season, or more than an eighth of it gone already, they’ll have to do something unprecedented to retain their crown. No Premier League title […]