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Thursday 30 June 2011

Opening fixtures performance for teams relegated to the championship

Teams being relegated from the Premiership perform much better after being relegated in their opening 2 fixtures than the teams that were promoted. Over the 7 seasons analysed 16 games resulted in sides winning 1 of their opening 2 fixtures, with 7 occurring in the opening games. In total relegated teams won 16, drew 14 and lost 12 of the opening 2 fixtures.

In the opening games we see that there were 7 wins, 9 draws and 5 defeats. Last season only Portsmouth lost, a team that was ravaged in debt and short of playing staff, both Hull and Burnley started with home wins. In the season before all 3 teams (Newcastle, Middlesborough and WBA) all drew on opening day.

In 15 games played by relegated teams at home on opening day only 2 teams have lost, 7 have drawn and 6 have won.

Only 6 games have therefore been played away from home by relegated sides so there is little form to go on, we see 3 defeats, 2 draws and only Watford in 2007/08 have won away on opening day.

This season we see West Ham playing at home to Cardiff. Cardiff have not started away from home for a number of seasons but history then shows 1 away win, 1 away defeat and 1 away draw meaning this is hard to predict. Equally, there are not definate patterns for Hull Vs Blackpool or Derby Vs Birmingham.

Its worth noting however that only 3 teams in the past 3 seasons (so 9 teams) have failed to win one of their opening 2 fixtures, indeed all teams relegated that drew in that period on the opening day went on to win their second fixture.

I will probably steer clear of the relegated teams on opening day and see if I can pick up on the second round of games once the results from week one are known.

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