By Daragh O'Leary

Throughout our years of watching football together, my father and I have developed a little tradition. Whenever we are watching Liverpool (his team) and they go two goals up, he will lean forward in his seat and sigh ‘I hate two goal leads’. While I was in a different part of the country at the time, I would wager a healthy amount that he said this to my mother in my absence last Sunday just after the Reds scored their second against Manchester City.
Two things have always puzzled me about this.

One, it is an entirely illogical train of thought. As Robbie Butler has attested to previously on the At the Margin podcast, the most common results in football are 1-0, 1-1, 0-1, 0-0. All of these results can be altered by just one goal. Accordingly, accumulating a two-goal lead at any point in a match massively increases the probability of a team winning.

The second thing which puzzles me about this tradition of ours is that I do it myself when watching my own team, Arsenal.

The reason for this is probably simple enough. It could be that the thought of our teams failing to win after already establishing a lead is so painful that we overestimate the likelihood of it occurring simply because we are worried about it. I do something very similar when thinking about the probability of seeing a vampire late at night. Given that I work with data, I was interested in seeing just how irrational a fear this was. It turns out, very.

Looking at 1,140 Premier League fixtures over 3 full seasons I looked at instances where teams were 2 goals up at half time (145) and then looked at the number of times those teams failed to win the fixture (12). Of those 12 times, 7 ended as draws, and 5 ended in a loss. This means teams fail to win matches where they have gone two-nil up at half time a little over 8% of the time.

​Interestingly, however, there is a bit of deviation in the prevalence of this happening depending on whether the leading team is home or away. In the case of the former, there are 85 instances of a home team being two-nil up at half time. Of these 85, 80 ended in a home win, 3 ended in a draw, and just 2 ended in a loss for the home side. Meaning when two-nil up at half time, the home team goes on to win the fixture just over 94% of the time. 

In the case of the latter, there are 60 instances of the away team being two-nil up at half time. Of these 60 matches, 53 ended in an away win, 4 ended in a draw, and 3 ended in a loss for the away team. Meaning when two-nil up at half time, the away team fails to win just under 12% of the time. Additionally, it should be noted that there are fewer instances of away teams leading by two goals at half time compared to home teams (60<85).
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To revise on a previous statement in this post, I now find a third thing puzzling about my attitude towards two-goal leads. The results of my own analysis on the topic, which confirm that they mostly result in wins for the leading team, have done nothing to suppress me fear of Arsenal throwing them away. 

By Robbie Butler

When teams are performing poorly or a transfer window opens, the answer is always simple to most fans - spend money on players. New players always seem to be the answer. This is true whether your clubs is struggling or top of the league.  

The data below presents the relationship between Net Spend (from Football Insider) and Premier League points since the start of the 2019/2020 season for the highest spending clubs (Nottingham Forest are excluded as they did not spend all seasons in the top flight).

 

The relationship between the top net spenders in the live for all five seasons appears to be negative and the trendline downward. 

Man City and Liverpool on 440 and 409 points respectively, had the lowest net spends. City spend £265 million and the Reds just £212. Meanwhile, Man Utd spent £810 million and accumlated just 333. Chelsea also spent big (£739 million) and won just 314, four fewer than Spurs who spent just £576 million. 

Big transfer fees may not be the answer. Instead, using the squad that one has already, aquiring players that are cheaper or signing players once their contracts have expired seems to be a much more prudent approach. 

By Robbie Butler

Today Liverpool Football Club announced it will "freeze general admission and season ticket prices for the 2025-26 season." This is great news for season ticket holders and regular visitors to the stadium and is in stark contrast to what other clubs are doing, including rivals Manchester United.

The interesting economic aspect of this approach of course is that Anfield repeatedly sells-out. In fact, the stadium has reached capacity at every home game this season across both league and cup games, with more than 60,000 people in attendance. The Champions League games at home had slightly less than 60,000 fans but due to FIFA regulation not a drop in demand. Even the home FA Cup 3rd Round game against League Two Accrington Stanley - a founding member of the original Football League in 1888 - sold out. 

The slide to the right is from my sports economics classes. It captures the theoretical demand and supply of match tickets. Here is a great example of the application of these principles as the Liverpool owners are cpricing in the inelastic portion of the demand curve. 

As the stadium continuously sells-out, regardless of the competition or strength of the opposition, the owners could increase revenue by raising the price of match tickets.

The question of course is why don't they? Anyone that supports the club will be well aware of the prudent approach taken by the owners. The club has bought just one player in the last three transfer windows.

The answer is not known but could be any of the following, or a combination of these factors. Maybe the owners wish to maximise attendance or the “fan experience”. As fans are part of the atmosphere they themselves create, a full stadium is much better than an empty one. Maybe the owners are maximising non-gate revenue e.g. merchandising, food stands, beverage sales, etc. Or maybe there is some empathy with the fans. This could be a result of pressure exerted by interest groups to keep prices down. Or maybe the owners might use this as an excuse not to purchase new players or renew contracts and claim fans will not pay higher ticket prices. 

Arthur Blank, the owner of the Atlanta Falcons and co-founder of Home Depot is often attributed as saying "Fans get the team they are prepared to pay for".

​By David Butler

Is the magic of the FA cup being reignited? A shock loss at Plymouth last weekend meant that Liverpool were dumped out. Along with Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham exiting, is there a chance for a smaller club to lift the cup? Sure, Manchester City may likely still win the trophy, but at least we may get some variety.

Since the onset of the modern football era and the birth of the Premier League the ‘Big-6’ have taken up 44 (68%) of the finalist slots in the FA cup – this can even be considered the ‘Big-5’ as Tottenham have never reached an FA cup final in modern football. Over the last decade, only 4 out of the 20 finalists’ slots have been taken up by clubs outside of Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea. Of these finals, we only saw one upset in the last ten years with Leicester defeating Chelsea.

A similar story can be told for the EFL cup – 41 out of the 66-places have been occupied by the ‘Big-6’. For the last decade, only 4 out of the twenty slots have been taken up by clubs outside of the Big-6. Two of these slots are by a wealthy and resurgent Newcastle, rather than a minnow. We will have to wait and see if Newcastle defeat Liverpool, but the other three non Big-6 finalists all lost. Manchester City have tended to dominate winning this competition recently.

There are various explanations for the growing concentration. In the early years of the modern football era the biggest clubs at the time often used these cup competitions to blood youth players. Arsene Wenger at Arsenal was particularly famous for this, and Manchester United revealed their priorities by withdrawing from the FA cup competition in 1999–2000. Things have changed a lot recently – the wealth of elite clubs, the demands of playing many fixtures, and injury concerns, has required top clubs to build NFL style rosters; it is now rare to see a variety of unknown under 21 players on a team sheet for a Big-6 club.  Having deep squads – or perhaps hoarding talent – depending on how you want to look at this, means that these clubs can rotate players without significantly weakening themselves, so the likelihood of a shock exit is lower.

Perhaps the incentives for smaller clubs have changed too. Given the financial cost of relegation from the Premier League, there are clear incentives to prioritise survival over winning domestic cups.  A run in the cup is fun, but the  objective is to survive or to reach the Premier League. A similar argument can be made for mid-table clubs trying to reach the Champions League or achieve European football more generally; its a risky strategy to chase Europe via a Cup win, where pulling off a major upset in a final will likely be a requirement. Probably best to focus on the League. 

Finally, there is the issue of competition design. Recent iterations of the League Cup for example have been seeded when the clubs participating in Europe enter. This has resulted in an even lower probability of a smaller team getting a lucky run to the final as the Big-6 rivals do not meet in early rounds. Are these changes due to broadcaster demands? Recent semi-finals of Tottenham vs Liverpool and Arsenal vs Newcastle are, of course, attractive products.

By David Butler

I was interviewed by the Economist newspaper last week about trends in pay for star footballers. The article can be read here. 

By Robbie Butler

Those readers that are interested in video games may know that the industry is somewhat under pressure. Much is now written about a so-called “crisis” in the sector with little innovation and very few new titles.
The industry is not immune to crisis. In 1983 the industry faced a crisis leading to the bankruptcy of some important players.

The current problems are not dissimilar.  In 2023, the industry experienced large scale layoffs, which affected both established and emerging game development studios, impacting employees, projects, and the overall landscape of the gaming industry.

Today it was announced that Football Manager 25 – a mainstay in the annual gaming release schedule – has been cancelled. Those behind the game said, “Due to a variety of challenges that we’ve been open about to date, and many more unforeseen, we currently haven’t achieved what we set out to do in enough areas of the game, despite the phenomenal efforts of our team”.

The statement continued “Each decision to delay the release was made with the aim of getting the game closer to the desired level but, as we approached critical milestones at the turn of the year, it became unmistakably clear that we would not achieve the standard required, even with the adjusted timeline. Whilst many areas of the game have hit our targets, the overarching player experience and interface is not where we need it to be. As extensive evaluation has demonstrated, including consumer playtesting, we have clear validation for the new direction of the game and are getting close – however, we’re too far away from the standards you deserve.”

I have no idea if the current versions of these games are good. Due to a combination of reasons, I stopped playing – what was then Championship Manager – many years ago.

One of the reasons for stopping was due to the sheer complication of the newer titles. As technology improved, the games became a closer representation of reality. I came to the point where the game was so realistic, it was hardly a game at all, and my enjoyment ceased.

In my mind at least, these games are about escapism. They are not supposed to be realistic.

In my introductory economics lectures I introduce students to economic models. I make it clear that he use of models is widespread in economics. Models have assumptions and, these influence how models operate. They are a representation of reality, not reality itself. We don’t need to model reality. We already have it.

If one arrived in a foreign city and needed to get from A to B, they often use a map. A map is nothing like the reality. It is rather a series of lines drawn on paper. Yet it works. If you offer someone a perfect representation of getting from A to B (via a simulator) the problem they have remains.

​Maybe it is time to make these game simple again. They don’t need to be close to reality in my view. That’s what they are games. 

By Robbie Butler

The Department of Economics of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP) is pleased to invite researchers to submit a paper for the second Latin American Sports Economics Conference (LASEC – 2) to be held in Lima (Perú) on July 17th and 18th, 2025.Submissions are welcome in any area related to sports economics, particularly papers addressing Latin American issues. Both completed works and research in progress are admissible; however, manuscripts already accepted for publication are not eligible. The conference language is English, but we also welcome outstanding research written or presented in Spanish, with translation services available.

The conference is thrilled to announce David Forrest (U. Liverpool) and Stefan Szymanski (U. Michigan) as keynote speakers.

To participate, please submit the title, authors, corresponding affiliations, and a 500-word abstract outlining the research question, methods, and mainresults by March 1, 2025 to the following link. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by March 28, 2025.

The scientific committee is composed of Gabriel Rodriguez (Chair,Economics Department, PUCP), James Reade (U. of Reading), and Jorge Tovar (U. Los Andes).
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For further information, please contact the conference organizers, JorgeTovar ([email protected]) and José Gallardo ([email protected]), or the conference assistant, Ana Lucía Del Río ([email protected]).