As any stuggling Fantasy Football manager will tell you, this season has been unusually difficult to predict.
With clubs like West Ham and Swansea bringing in players like Dimitri Payet and Andre Ayew, players with a continental reputation and sacrificing European football to play in the Premier League, it's evident that a lot of the supposed "mid-table clubs" are now far more dangerous than they have been before.
We've seen Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea all struggle at home already this season as teams seem content to sit and play on the counter which, now that they have better players to play that strategy, is becoming more and more fruitful.
Alistair Tweedale today published a very interesting article over on The Telegraph on the subject, the focus of which was this surprising stat:
Only six of 30 Premier League games so far this term have ended in a home win. What is more, two of those wins – Manchester United’s over Tottenham and Liverpool’s over Bournemouth – could be considered rather fortuitous. The former was decided by an own goal without United having had a shot on target and the latter was won courtesy of a Christian Benteke strike that should have been disallowed for offside.
Six out of 30 games have ended in a win for the home side. That is rather unusual.
But it is understandable. When teams like Arsenal and Manchester United play at home, there is an expectancy to perform, and to attack for the full 90 minutes, while the opposition can park the bus and hopefully frustrate their opponents and then strike on the counter. However, when these clubs go away from home, it is the other club that is often expected to be more attacking in front of their home fans, which in turn is seeing more results for the away side.
It's certainly something to think about before you put down your accumulator for the weekend's action, and we would high reccommend reading the Telegraph article in full here.
