The International Hangover: Effects on the Title Chasers

The bane of top flight managers jobs, yet an excuse for failure or fatigue. The international break provides endless fodder for the media, the industry and the public to belly-ache about ill-timing, long travels and just how seriously people take them. There is definitely an effect on the league, and this blog will try to delve into just what happens to the results following these player dispersions. The first table below shows the results of the "top 6" teams in the games following and before the international break.

Conclusions to be drawn from this data include:

• Liverpool have only won 2 of the last 10 games after the international break
• Chelsea have only won 4 of the last 10 games
• Manchester City have only lost 1 of the last 10 (To Manchester United)
• Before the Everton away game as the opener this season, Manchester United were undefeated
• Tottenham were undefeated, until the 3-1 loss to Arsenal which coincided with the beginning of a spell of 1 win in 9 league games (Arguably the reason that Spurs lost the last Champions League position and lost Harry Redknapp)
• Arsenal have only one loss and none against lower level opposition - the same as Man City
• Arsenal have a poor record in the games before the break, but an excellent record in the first games back

In terms of betting, this data suggests that there is no advantage to Laying either of the Manchester clubs or Arsenal, but opportunities may arise by looking at Chelsea, Tottenham and Liverpool.

Looking at this information in further detail, a comparison against the clubs' general league performance over the same period can highlight areas to of interest:

On this chart, a red number means that the performances were worse than the average over the whole period and a green is an improvement. The first columns are the games after the international break and the second columns are the games before each break. 

In terms of wins, Man City and Arsenal lead the way, 15% and 18% more wins than the average for those seasons. Man Utd and Spurs are roughly the same but Chelsea and Liverpool are -12% and -20% respectively. In terms of picking out info for betting the key stats that stand out to me are:

• Arsenal to win after the break, but not before
• Liverpool not to win after the break
• Chelsea to struggle
• The draw is unlikely in Tottenham and Chelsea games pre-break

Using this information, and naturally taking into account other factors, here are some tentative early predictions for the first results following England's games in Moldova and against the Ukraine this week:

Back Arsenal to beat Southampton at Home

Back Manchester City to beat Stoke Away 

Back Manchester United to beat Wigan at Home

Lay Chelsea against QPR Away

Lay Liverpool against Sunderland Away

Lay Tottenham against Reading Away