The big Premier League game this weekend saw Arsenal and Liverpool hammer out a 2-2 draw at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday. As is so often the case, Manchester City were the real winners.
Here’s five things our football tipster and stats man Andrew Beasley noticed that can inform our betting predictions going forward.
Late doors
There was a lot of late drama. Half of the games saw their results changed by goals in the 92nd minute or later. It wasn’t just the main Match Odds market that was affected, with bets on Both Teams Scoring needing stoppage-time goals to pay out at Aston Villa and Everton.
With the chaos between Brentford and Ipswich, plus only Southampton and Tottenham drawing blanks, it would be reasonable to assume goals are on the rise. But they’re not.
In fairness, we are seeing more goals per Premier League game than the long-term average. However, there were 3.3 per match last season, whereas in 2024/25, there were 2.9.
More notably, from our perspective, the average of 6.5 games per week that saw Over 2.5 goals last term has dropped to 5.6 this time around. After the madness of 2023/24, teams may have remembered how to defend a little bit.
More bore draws
Another impact of tighter games and plenty of late goals is that the proportion of draws is approaching record levels.
With top teams more dominant than ever before and newly promoted sides often struggling to bridge the gap from the Championship, draws have been in decline. Across the last six seasons, there was an average of 83.8 per campaign, with a maximum of 92.
Yet we’re on track to finish with 106 this term, which would be the most since 2015/16 (107). The 20-team Premier League era record of 119 isn’t out of reach either.
The problem for bettors is that draws are difficult to predict. Expected goal data suggested Everton-Fulham and Arsenal-Liverpool were among the three likeliest top-flight games to end all square this week, though, and they did. Always check the numbers.
Big lads get more done
Player height information is notoriously unreliable. But even if we must tread carefully, one thing is clear: several teams rely on big men up top.
And what’s more, the four leading candidates all scored this weekend. By the simple measure of the percentage of team goals scored, Chris Wood is the most important player in the Premier League, having bagged seven of Nottingham Forest’s 11 goals this season (64%).
He leads the standings from Ipswich Town’s Liam Delap (who came off the bench to score on Saturday) on 56% and, unsurprisingly, Erling Haaland. His winner against Southampton was his 11th and Manchester City’s 20th league goal in 2024/25.
Jean-Phillipe Mateta completed our big boy quartet with a goal against Spurs, meaning he has accounted for half of Crystal Palace’s six goals this term.
Older fans think of big men up front as Niall Quinn-style aerial monsters when that isn’t quite the case here. But opposition defenders and bettors must pay attention to the lanky lads.
Bruno’s firing blanks
You have to feel for Erik ten Hag. All right, not much, but his players are seriously letting him down in front of the goal. Did you see Diogo Dalot’s miss at West Ham on Sunday? Mercy me.
And with rumours flying around that the Man United suits were seen meeting former Barcelona midfielder and manager Xavi over the weekend, his days could, finally, be coming to an end.
Man United are underachieving against expected goals by one of the widest margins in Europe’s big five leagues. Bruno Fernandes is largely to blame.
With five shots at the London Stadium, none of which found the target, the United captain has now taken 28 without scoring this season. Add on the end of 2023/24, and the run stands at 34 goal-less attempts in the Premier League.
In seven of the nine matches in which he completed 90 minutes in that run, he fired off at least two efforts. Fernandes remains a good bet if wagering on shots but steer clear in the goal scorer market until he gets back on the horse.
Gunners’ & Reds’ half-time stats
In the big game that closed the weekend, we saw one trend ending while another continued.
Liverpool were 9-0 in Premier League first halves before their trip to north London. Even by going down 2-1 at the break there, the Reds still have the best first-half goal difference in the division, so they’re worth considering in any markets relating to the opening 45 minutes of games.
As for Arsenal, a negative trend was sadly upheld. Last season, the Gunners led at half-time in 18 league matches and won them all. The draw with Liverpool represented the third time in 2024/25 in which three points at the interval became one by full-time. Arsenal won’t win the league if this record continues.
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