Are 'bigger' EPL teams undervalued over the busy Christmas schedule?

With each EPL team playing two games in three days over the Christmas period, it's believed to be an advantage for the 'bigger' teams with better squads? This article looks at how these teams perform during past Christmas periods to see if bettors should factor this in to their betting.

The festive period is the busiest stretch of the Premier League season culminating in a run of three games between Boxing Day and New Year.

Rest and recuperation between matches is extremely important for soccer player's recovery. Yet, over this period sides will only have one full days rest between fixtures. How will this affect, the players, and can bettors find an edge?

Southampton’s manager, Ronald Koeman has already highlighted the problems associated with such a quick turnaround and his fears appear to be backed up by studies on recuperation time from Raymond Verheijen, and a study of physical data from Omar Chaudhuri.

Since 2002, around 75% of games played over the Christmas period involved sides that had the same opportunity to recover from their previous match. So the Europa League hangover, where opponents have often had varying degrees of rest time is largely absent.

It is suggested that sides with bigger squads, who are also more accustomed to playing with restricted recuperation times because of their regular involvement in European tournaments, will fare better than their lesser rivals, especially if rest time is very short.

Koeman’s point is not without merit. Not only do the top EPL teams contain talented bit part players, they also play more, ensuring their squad players don’t lack match sharpness.

The evidence: Do better teams gain more points?

For bettors, the best way to test Koeman’s assertion is to see how top teams gather points over Christmas compared to the rest of the year. Typically, since 2002 a top four finishing team wins around 2 points per game over a season.

However over Christmas they perform even better, winning a combined 2.6 points per match. Therefore there is superficial evidence that the shortest of turnarounds can favour the best.

Nevertheless, sample size is an issue, and as we cut results into smaller sizes, we invite extreme results simply by chance. Top sides have played less than 30 festive matches split by just one day of full rest over the last decade of the EPL. Therefore when considering this data, bettors shouldn’t ignore the importance of chance or the strength of schedule.

The implied odds suggest that 17 of 26 such matches played over the last decade would have been won by the top side against weaker opposition. In reality 22 matches were won, an impressive 84.6% of games. However, for betting purposes we need to know if this over performance occurred mostly through chance or because of a systematic under-pricing of the favourites?

Although bettors like answers to contain certainty, more often conclusions have to be couched in terms of probability. We can simulate the 26 Christmas games using the implied win probabilities from the quoted odds to see how frequently the title contenders win at least 22 matches.

Overall the group of top sides only managed 22 or more wins in 1.6% of the simulations. As ever the past can only give a general guidance to future events, and given the simulations produce results that are so extreme, we might begin to consider that the odds didn't accurately reflect their chances – something if recognised by bettors at the time would have given them an edge. 

The simulations have been calculated using implied or true odds for a favoured top team to win. However, once an over-round is added, any perceived advantage may begin to disappear.

From a soccer perspective the research that highlighted games in quick succession eroded performance and helped the well-resourced teams, appear to be confirmed by past Christmas matches.

How does this impact your betting?

It's an unusually productive period for top sides, although, in many other respects, Christmas games are largely unexceptional - goals and shots reflect typical totals for the remainder of the calendar.

From a betting angle, the over-performance that occurred compared to the odds over the last decade might be expected to happen only once every 60 simulations.

Niche betting strategies inevitably mean conclusions are drawn from smaller than ideal samples and there is also the real possibility that unidentified circumstances, unique to this set of games and unrelated to physical tiredness, had a large effect on the results, but may not be repeated in the future.

So awareness that the chances of the best teams in the Premier League may be enhanced on December 28th should be used to guide your bets, rather than using the knowledge as a stand-alone betting strategy.