Hey all, thought I would let everyone wake up to a little bit of statistical analysis. Just to preface, I thought we actually played pretty well against Tottenham- we just didn't win. And this is a game of results. And we have 4 wins and 8 draws at home this season. Those 8 draws are against Sunderland, ManUre, Norwich, Swansea, Man City, Blackburn, Stoke, and now Spurs. Obviously a draw against Spurs or City is much more impressive than the rest of the results on face value, but just the overall underwhelming performance at home this season got me thinking.
I checked back through the last ten years, so dating back to the 01-02 season to be completely clear, just to see how the top 4 teams in each year did at home. What I found did not really do much to quiet my nerves for our chances this season.
Each year, obviously, there are 19 home matches for a possible total of 57 points to be won at home. Right now we have played 12 matches at home- 4 wins + 8 draws= 20 points from a possible 36. Leaving 7 matches and 21 points still up for grabs.
Throughout the past decade, the lowest home points total for a top 4 team was set by us in the 03-04 season. We finished with 10 wins and 4 draws for a total of 34 points gained from home, and overall finished with the lowest point total for a top 4 team during this time period as we ended with 60 points- 15 off third place that season (the Arsenal Invincibles year for memory's sake). To put this point total into context, aside from Everton gaining 61 points the following year the next lowest point total for a top 4 team was 67, which happened a couple times.
The next lowest home points total was set by ManUre back in the 01-02 season, when they finished third after grabbing 35 points at home. Third was Arsenal last year, 37 points at home to finish in 4th.
Throughout those years, the average home points total for a top 4 team was 44.25. This is obviously skewed by the teams higher up in the table, perhaps a more useful average is that of the 4th place finisher- in the past ten years the average was 40 points at home for the 4th place team.
Obviously being good at home isn't the only requirement to finish top 4, most of the 40 teams had at least a decent away record. To be a good team you need to get points whether you play at home or away. However, what I think is important to note is how the home form usually carries a team. Of the 40 teams, only 5 took an equal or greater amount of points from road games compared to home games:
08-09 Liverpool (2nd place, 43 points both home and away)
08-09 Chelsea (3rd place, 5 more points away than home)
04-05 Chelsea (Won the league, 1 more point away than home)
01-02 Arsenal (Won the league, 7 more points away than home)
01-02 Manure (3rd place, 7 more points away than home)
Of these 5 teams, the wins away from home totaled 13, 14, 15, 14, and 13 respectively. None of the teams lost more than 3 games on the road (we have already lost 5 on the road). They are the exception to the rule.
Currently we are on 39 points, 20 from home matches and 19 from away. Only 07-08 chelsea (2nd place) and 03-04 chelsea (also 2nd place) finished the season with one more point from home matches than away. In 01-02 we finished in second with 2 more points from home matches, and in 06-07 Chelsea finished in second with a total of 3 more points gained at home. These are the only other times when a team finished in the top 4 having accumulated enough away points to be within just one match of their points gained at home.
But what do all these bullshit numbers mean?
Perhaps nothing. But in the past ten seasons only 5 out of 40 teams finished in the top 4 with better away records. A further 4 more teams finished with very similar home and away records. That is 9 out of 40. The most astonishing thing?? None of those 9 teams finished lower than 3rd. None of those teams were fourth place teams. In those ten years, the fourth place team finished with more points from home all ten times. More specifically- 6, 18, 4, 8, 16, 23, 15, 8, 15, 7 - more points at home respectively.
This year will be a very tight race for fourth. As much as I would love it, I don't see any of the top 3 dropping down to fourth- I mean Spurs have a 7 point advantage over Chelsea right now. We are only 4 points back, still very very very much in it. We will have to play well both home and away to secure a champions league spot, while at the same time having at least one cup final to worry about. Everybody knows we have to improve our home form, but we have 7 matches left- how many points will we need?? I think these stats show we need to do extremely well in these last 7 home matches- Everton, Arsenal, Wigan, Villa, Fulham, West Brom, Chelsea. Of the 40 top-4 teams I studied, only 1 team (us in 03-04 as stated earlier) won 10 matches at home and only 4 teams won 11 at home. Currently we have 4 home wins, I will let you do the math there. I would obviously love to win all 7 of the remaining matches at Anfield, but I think at the very minimum our goal should be 15 points out of 21.
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