I was a VAR-sceptic before the World Cup but it worked well in Russia and led to more penalties and more goals. The technology is not being used during the 2018/19 Premier League season. With no significant changes to the rules and VAR not in operation we can assume there will not be much variance from the average number of goals per match in the previous season. The 380 matches in the Premier League 2017/18 season produced 1018 goals at an average of 2.68 per match.
Generally there are more goals in the second half of matches than before the break. Fatigue makes matches more open and teams struggle to keep their shape. With fewer minutes remaining the need for goals increases so teams are more likely to push forward so there is more space for the opposition. Average goals tallies are about 50% higher in the second half than in the first 45 minutes.
Match goals tallies are very consistent across the major European Leagues. Here are the averages from the main leagues in Europe in 2017/18:
England 2.68
Spain 2.70
Italy 2.68
Germany 2.80
France 2.72
Based on these figures we can safely assume that the goals average during the 2018/19 Premier League season will be between 2.6 and 2.8. The most popular team total across all the matches in the EPL is one and the next popular tally is zero. The number of occurrences of goals for a team decreases as the number of goals goes up. Hence teams scored two goals in a match more often than they scored three. The most frequent score line was one-nil and both teams scored in about 50% of the fixtures during the campaign from August to May.
The full schedule of 380 fixtures produced 173 home wins, 108 away wins and 99 draws. If you convert those numbers into probabilities here are the fractional and decimal odds:
Home Win 6/5 2.20
Away Win5/23.52
Draw 19/5 3.84
On average the home teams scored 1.53 goals and the away team found the net 1.15 times each fixture. There were 582 home goals and 436 goals scored by the visitors. Home advantage is a proven trend in the Premier League and over the course of a season its worth 0.38 goals per match. On average home teams won 1.63 points while away teams picked up 1.11 points on the road equating to a difference of 0.52 points.
So home teams scored at a rate 50% higher than their guests. Playing at your own stadium has obvious advantages such as familiarity with the surroundings, reduced travelling and the support of most of the crowd. Wins on the road against close rivals are significant and home defeats are damaging. They say you should never back a team at odds-on to win away from home but 28% of Premier League fixtures in 2017/18 were won by the away team.
The number of corners in a Premier League fixture depends on several factors including the following:
Nature of a team’s attack.
Tactics adopted at the back.
Tendency to clear lines.
Size of pitch.
Weather.
There were 3908 corners during the 2017/18 Premier League season at an average of 10.28 corners per match. The averages were 5.74 corners for the home team and 4.54 corners for the away team. On average home advantage was worth 1.20 corners over the full season. Similar stats can be expected over upcoming seasons while the rules remain unchanged. VAR does affect events in a match so rules changes will impact on goals and corners in the future but the status quo means statistics from previous seasons can be useful in making projections and bets in the immediate future.
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