Premier League Domination: Top six versus the rest.

In this article, Dave Evans uses the Form Lab software to analyse the performance of the top six teams in the Premier League this season. 

Despite Newcastle’s valiant effort, the Premier League top six is looking ominously familiar going into Christmas.

No surprises there you might think, the Premier league has had a large class divide for many years. We might not have predicted that Spurs would be 3rd, but at the start of the season you would have been hard pressed to find a bookmaker not making each these teams odds on to finish in the top six.

However there is one thing it seems that the bookies still haven’t factored in – just how much better the top six are this year compared to the rest of the league.

Top six – Better than even the bookies expected. 

If the bookies are doing their job right, blindly backing top six teams should make a loss, but this hasn’t been the case this season.

Against Stoke mid week, Man City were available at 1.25 for the home win. Small odds, but so far results from the top six teams have implied that those odds should have been even shorter.

First, here are the returns this season from backing all top six teams at home using average odds.

Here are the returns this season from backing all top six teams away.

So far this season you could have made a profit simply backing top six teams in every game, especially away from home. This quite simply shouldn’t happen if games are going the bookies expect. The only team to let the side down is Chelsea. The results are rather skewed by Man City’s 100% home record, but still the away returns are well above average.

Top six well above average

To put these returns into perspective, we need to look at betting returns in the Premier League since 2008/2009.

*The P/L % refers to profit on turnover.

There are two two key trends to make note of so far this season

1) Away wins are well above average for all teams not just the top six. This season there have been 34% of games going to the away side, versus 27% historically. The betting returns have followed suit with home bets making big losses and away returns nearly breaking even. This completely reverses the home bias seen in the EPL since 2008.

2) Top 6 teams are even more dominant than historical averages. The top 6 teams have won 58% of away matches this campaign, compared to their average rate of 42%. Their home win rate is well above average too. This has caught the bookies out as well, with a profit available from backing top six teams away.

Will it last?

Is this the start of the top six breaking away even further? It’s almost impossible to tell at this stage, but it is a trend that is hard to ignore. The bookies don’t appear to have adjusted their prices yet, assuming that this dominance will correct and the lesser teams will grab a few unexpected victories.

This correction is more likely than not, but don’t expect it to come over the festive period. Our analysis shows:

In the Premier League there is a clear correlation for the stronger team doing better as they have won 11% more games around Christmas than at other points of the season. Compounding this the number of defeats that home top-six sides suffer drops from 16% to 12% in the festive period. Goals supremacy and home W/Ws increase by 20% and 16% respectively and the amount of Over 2.5 goals games also increases 7%.

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