Portsmouth have dumped their manager—will it change their results? Chelsea are on a winning streak—does it mean anything? Media pundits and sports fans—and punters—devote time and energy to speculation about who will win Saturday's beautiful game. The discussions—in pubs, newspapers and dressing rooms—are usually based on subjective opinion, or evidence that is at best partial or impressionistic. Can statisticians do better? John Goddard offers a large-scale analysis of patterns in English league results from the past 35 football seasons—new managers, winning and losing streaks, home advantages and all.
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John Goddard (2006) studied this question.
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