Chap3:The Form Chart

The current form of teams is another factor bookmakers take into consideration when deciding the odds. There are different ways to determine how strong the form of a team is .Most systems use the results of a team’s last 5 matches to arrive at a fair accessment of its current form. Yu can also easily see a sequence of run/lost (top 3 team/bottom). Rest will flip-flop between matches giving rise to a negative effect of the predictions eventually.

This is a recognised trend in most league, take a look at my final results from top 6 league from last year and you can see what i mean; zoom in on the nearest prediction; all negative swing....hmm, of course not all will observe such a trend but most will. I can also highlight that for a league of 18 or 20 teams, the below most probably concurred but for smaller league, 10 to 15 team, the possibabilty of positive reading on the nearest are higher, this is due to the fact that the middle teams range are smaller.

Nearest 3/Nearest

ENG FORM -22/-31.5
FRA FORM 1.5/-1.5
HOL FORM 14/-9.5
GER FORM -16/-20
ITA FORM 3.5/-17
SPL FORM -14.5/-28

Upon close inspection, it was found that for most teams that won’t their most recent game, especially by a big margin, they were likely to do less well in the next game. The reason for this phenomenon is relatively simple and yet not widely recognized by the betting public. Different classes of team react differently to wins and losses.

The average and lesser teams are always buoyed by a win, which does not come too often. When such a club does experience a win, confidence runs throughout the club when they go into their next match; which is well and good but another effect takes place. There is a sense of achievement because of the result and work rate begins to fall. Should they win a 2nd game in a row, 2 opposing emotions come into play. First, there might be a sense of false complacency resulting from the sense of well being and 2nd , there might be a underlying belief that a weak club such as theirs could not possibly win 3 in a row. A psychological glass ceiling starts to form in the team’s mind and this more often than not, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The same, however, cannot be said for the top clubs. Top clubs have higher expectations. They are hungrier. 1 win is totally expected. 2 or 3 quite normal. In fact, losses are considered out of the ordinary and to be avoided at all costs. The min result top teams might grudgingly accept is an away draw and only to another top team. That is why most winning teams look to bounce back in the subsequent game following a defect; especially a heavy one.

Most systems would give a higher Weightage to an away win or a draw than to a home win or draw respectively. I used 3 for away win ,1.5 for away draw, 2 for home win, 1 for home draw, and 0 for any lost. (That is just for me, feel free to test out).

Subsequetly, Timers are multply to the Weightage above to simulate the team form more accurately. Namely, give the nearest result a higher timer like 5, next 4, .... furtherst 1. Total then and you have like;

Team Form= 5xW1+ 4xW2+ .....1xW1

Take the difference between 2 opposing team and you have the Form Gap. Hence you will have yourself the theoritical portion of the chart.

For the satistical part, the steps are quite similar to the home advantage chart in chap 2;

Note the Form Gap vs the final results and create frequency chart/table. Take the next data in a new Form Gap and compare to the nearest.

As similar to the satistical portion of chap 2, I used a selection method of nearest 3 and nearest. Thus giving me a more bird eye view of the data.

This chart has a good advantage of incoporating all the direct/indirect factors into its stride, making it the most accurate in all the charts in the market. A disadvantage is take min 5 matches for the data to materialize, another 3 match or so to set in and we can only take its prediction 2 months into the league, another disadvantage is just my personally opinion, for small leagues, it might behave irrationally.