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Arun - December 7, 2023
Some perceived changes in football are subjective and qualitative – it’s only a feeling that Premier League games are more open, or that defenders and goalkeepers have somewhat lost their knack to keep clean sheets, for example. But one thing that can’t be denied is that more goals are being scored in the Premier League than ever before – that’s evidenced by the stats.
Last season (2022/23) was the highest scoring in EPL history but 2023/24 is on course to smash all known records, with a staggering average of more than three goals per game being recorded.
When the feeling is that a particular game will have three, four or more goals in it, the actual final score can be incredibly difficult to predict – far more so than 1-0 in a contest between two defensive, humdrum outfits.
Such volatility makes it even more challenging for oddsmakers, who have to figure out how to price up their goal-orientated markets like over/under, both teams to score, correct score and the like.
That uncertainty can create opportunities for punters, who might just be able to spot value bets when a bookie has, in their opinion, undervalued how many goals will be scored – or, perhaps, where they have overvalued the likelihood of a contest being goal-heavy.
This is all good news for prospective betting agents, too. As this article on how to become a 1xBet agent highlights, agents act as a ‘middleman’ between bettors and a bookmaker, bringing the two together as an intermediary. An agent must be able to present their clients with a valid reason for joining a betting site – value bets, utilising the goals data, is just one of those.
These agents earn commission whenever they introduce a new depositing customer to a sportsbook, so the more value they can add on behalf of their clientele, the better.
There’s an old saying about cricket: it’s “a team sport played by individuals”, with the same ringing true for football as well.
Punters often rank a team’s likelihood to score multiple goals on the strength of the sum of its parts – the ‘goals for’ column of the league table rarely lies. But how important are the individual pieces of the whole puzzle?
There’s no doubt that Manchester City are weakened when Erling Haaland is unavailable, for example. They scored 94 goals in the Norwegian’s first season, winning the Premier League and Champions League double – the first time they had conquered Europe’s most prestigious competition.
You can see further evidence of that by looking at the betting odds when Haaland is rested by Pep Guardiola – City’s price for that particular game will lengthen accordingly, as his replacement (whoever that may be) simply won’t be as prolific in front of goal. As this BBC article on Haaland’s future highlights, it doesn’t look like his form is due to drop any time soon, either.
And that’s the key to predicting goals in football matches – understanding the most important individuals in a team’s attacking play. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a goalscorer; it could be their main assist provider, a midfielder with a wealth of key passes to their name, a tricky winger who initiates counterattacks and facilitates goalscoring opportunities… and so on.
Identifying each team’s most significant attacking players – and altering your predictions when they play and when they don’t – is the ideal foundation for your goals-based analysis.
