By Daragh O'Leary

Anyone familiar with my writing on this blog will know that I am an avid Arsenal fan. Naturally, this means quite a lot of my football posts centre around Arsenal. One example of this would be my research on the night owl effect in the Premier League.
 
In a previous post, I explained how watching Arsenal lose so many games away under the lights motivated me to examine whether there was a connection between late kick-offs and home advantage. Sure enough, I found some evidence to back this up empirically with econometric tests, but I found explaining the result a bit challenging because no one had ever observed it before. Accordingly, there was no real theoretical discussion in the literature on why later kick-offs may improve home advantage.
 
One of the possible explanations I put forward was that later kick-off times might facilitate greater levels of alcohol consumption among fans. My reasoning for this was that greater alcohol consumption could produce more hostile atmospheres for away teams. While this explanation was purely speculative, I was interested to see that Arsenal seemingly tried to harness it during their recent Champions League quarter final against Real Madrid.
 
In dramatic contrast to the London clubs usual revenue maximising strategy of high prices (£6.35 for a pint), Arsenal actually offered fans two-for-one beers prior to kick-off against the Spanish giants. Presumably, the reasoning behind this was to try and maximise the influence which the home fans could have on the game.
 
This notion of teams leveraging off the support of their fans to achieve key results is not at all uncommon in football. Jurgen Klopp once famously remarked that ‘even the hotdog sellers’ needed to be on top form ahead of a Liverpool-Manchester City title clash at Anfield. Madrid looked to try something similar for the return leg at the Bernabéu by closing the roof on their stadium.
 
Fortunately for Arsenal, their beer-orientated strategy seemed to outshine Madrid’s interior design choice. 

By Robbie Butler

The narrative on winning the Premier League is interesting to observe. The ease with which Liverpool will probably win the Premier League has made others question both the team and the league.

It has been fascinating to observe – as the week has passed – what others perceived Liverpool “needed” to win the league. “Liverpool need 5 more wins.” “Liverpool need 4 more wins.” “Liverpool need 3 more wins.” And so on. Now it is “Liverpool need 1 more win.”

The reality, of course, is that this was never true. Liverpool didn’t need to do anything; others did. They are the ones that are chasing. Liverpool could have lost all their remaining games – they still could – and win the league. When you are 8, 9 or 10 points ahead, as was often the case, it is up to others to win 3 games or more to catch the leaders.

As we hit this weekend we will hear “Liverpool need 1 more win.” This is not true. What I assume those saying this mean is that “Liverpool need 1 more win” to guarantee the title. This is also untrue. Liverpool are 13 points clear of Arsenal. Arsenal can get a maximum of 15 more points. Assuming Liverpool need to get 3 more points assumes that Arsenal can only get 15 more, and therefore a win guarantees the title.

This ignores the fact that Liverpool and Arsenal must play each other. Therefore, Liverpool can guarantee winning the league with just 80 points – one more point – assuming that point comes against Arsenal.

​80, of course, would be a relatively low winning amount. Leicester won the league on 81 points. However, Manchester United have been crowned champions in the 70–79 point bracket. The winners this season will be somewhere in the mid-to-high 80s, I predict. They may even reach or break 90 points. If they do, Liverpool will surpass the totals of Manchester City in 2 of the past 4 seasons. Arguably the greatest team in the history of English football – 4 league titles in a row – two of which could be lower points totals than Liverpool 2024/25.

By David Butler

According to the Telegraph, Leicester manager Ruud Van Nistelrooy and player Harry Winks have had a major disagreement. The midfielder reportedly turned down a request to stay overnight once a week at the Leicester training ground citing private reasons. 

One interesting aspect of Winks’ personal life may explain his preference for a commute - Marlowe Otilia Winks was born last month. Over the years, there has been many famous cases of paternity interfering in the work life and preparation of footballers. There is a variety of alternative views on how this should be managed and what expectations should be placed on players. They are human and experience the same emotions as all of us, equally they have statutory worker rights. Of course, these workers are extremely highly paid.

In our most recent paper, Robbie and I address the issue of paternity in football. In a nutshell, we find negative short-run performance effects for elite footballer players just prior to, and after, becoming a Dad.  This decline exists for certain measures related to pass and goal creation.  While it seems that the decision to commute or stay was left outside of Winks contract, the manager had a clear preference - perhaps Ruud's nod wasn't as good as a wink. 

Our paper is open access in Kyklos  and can be read here: The Baby Club  



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By Robbie Butler

​I have written extensively about VAR. I remain opposed to its use in football. I believe it has fundamentally changed the game and the way it is consumed.

Most of us do not know what it is like to consume the game as a professional player. It must be incredible to be part of top football leagues and compete weekly, whilst getting paid. I can only imagine the impact VAR has had on the enjoyment of those playing professionally in the game. This also extends to others professionally employed by the game such as managers, coaches and support staff.

Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou gave a brilliant interview which endorsed what I have been saying for some time. Last week he said: “No doubt, it's not the game I loved… I am falling out of love with the game because I love celebrating goals. I paid a high price for it [against Chelsea]. I'm paying a massive price for it, but I'll make sure I won't do it again."

That is what VAR has done. People have stopped celebrating goals. I could not think of a more fundamental change to consuming the game.

I am guilty of this. I don’t celebrate when my team scores but wait. It is the risk aversion in me. Talk about killing the game.

Because that is what it is. A game! I fear those in charge have lost sight of this. I am not sure whether this is intentional or not, but “drama” is what seems to be important rather than the original concept – deciding which team was best.

When the Sheffield Rules were written in 1858, I imagine nobody in the room could have conceived of VAR. Those rules – or laws as they have become – were not scientific, but guidelines as to how the game should be played. What exists now is a ‘product’ for television, with little interest in the application of common sense.

One really has to wonder how VAR can be used so poorly. This is acutely true of the English Premier League, with poor use ranging from very strange decision-making to actual misapplication of the rules. The Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) put the incident down to "significant human error".

The most recent PGMOL apology came last. Both the match official and VAR failed to issue a red card to Everton’s James Tarkowski for the tackle below. Every pundit, player, manager and ex-referee I have heard from agreed that the tackle constituted serious foul play. This means it should have seen the Everton centre-back’s punishment upgraded, from an original yellow card to a red card via VAR review.

The referee does not have the benefit of a replay – unless told otherwise by the VAR – so when the VAR looked at this, the question is how did he, and he alone, judge this to be not a “clear and obvious error”? Only the VAR, Paul Tierney, can answer this question.

By Robbie Butler

With the Aintree Racing Festival for 2025 about to commence and the Grand National - the most icon of all horse races - set to go to post on Saturday, I thought it timely to revisit a post of mine in 2017. 

As I said in 2017 "I think most people would agree that the performance of sports teams and individuals has improved over time. One need only look at old footage of any sport, team based or individual, to witness how fitness, physique, athleticism, stamina and technique have all improved. This is in no way to dimisnish the greats of the past, who may have achieved the same results, or possibly even better, had they access to the same improvements in technology, coaching, and sports science, etc.

Improvements in individual sports are often easier to spot than team-based ones. This is because there is usually a world record time, distance, weight etc. This way it is easier to compare contestants through time. Remarkably, Jesse Owens' world record from 1936 is 0.04 short of today's Olympic qualifying time of 10.16 seconds."

Horse racing continunes to buck the trend focuing on the data below - the winning time of each race. While there has been a slight improvement on average through time - the trend appears to be downward, there has been effectively no improvement over the past quarter of a century. 

The record time remains that of Mr Frisk - the 1990 winner - winning the 4 mile 2.5 furlong race in 8 minutes 48 seconds. The 2024 winner I Am Maximus took 9 minutes and 24 seconds to complete the course which is now far easier to complete given the reduce fence size and smaller field.