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Kick Off times vs goals - and a fallacy put to bed 13:05 - Dec 7 with 409 viewsGeoffSentence

Lifted from the Torygraph:

It is often suggested that players look 'half asleep' after a slow start to an early kick-off, and given many of us probably feel like we could do with an extra couple of hours in bed at 12.30pm on a Saturday, it is easy to assume that footballers might not be ready for the intensity of a top level match.

After midweek evening fixtures that produced 33 goals and saw every single team scoring in a single round of Premier League games for the first time since November 2010, it felt easier than ever to presume that matches under the lights produce more drama than those early on in the day.

It turns out, though, that this, just like many more of football's great assumptions - such as the attestation that "two-nil is the most dangerous scoreline" or "a team is never more vulnerable than just after scoring" - is a fallacy.

Breaking Premier League fixtures down by kick-off time reveals that lunchtime matches average more goals than afternoon, early evening or late evening games.

In the Premier League era, matches kicking off between 11am (yes - one match started that early) and 1.45pm have seen an average of 2.81 goals per game. That drops to 2.64 in matches starting at 2pm or later and before 5pm. Over the course of thousands of matches, such a difference is significant.

There is clamour (mainly from the television companies, but also from fans who want to be able to watch even more football) to include more late kick-offs over the weekend, with Friday night games now a semi-regular feature in the Premier League, Saturday night football introduced this season and some talk of late games being added to the Sunday action.

This weekend, Leicester host Tottenham at 7.45pm on Saturday night, having shared a nine-goal thriller at Wembley on the final day of last season.

However, there is no reason to assume that game will supply any more goals than Bournemouth versus Liverpool at lunchtime, with Premier League games starting at 7pm or later producing an average of just 2.56 goals per game.

So when you wake up tomorrow and feel rather too relaxed before the early kick-off, don't assume the players feel the same.

Don't boil a kettle on a boat.
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