Manchester United: Kings of the Turnaround

Every time Manchester United come from behind to win you will hear commentators and pundits falling over each other to trot out familiar cliches. ‘They’ve been doing this for 20 years.’ ‘It isn’t a fluke that United always do this.’ ‘They never know when they’re beaten…’

So if Fergie’s boys do it so often, and it’s so inevitable, could it possibly be true that there’s money to be made simply by backing them to do it again in the future? The answer appears to be yes.

A little research has revealed that the average pre-match best price you can get on Man United ‘winning from behind’ is approximately 7/1 or 8/1. For a match that the Red Devils are overwhelming favourites to win, like their next Premier League home clash with Southampton, the best odds are 6/1 (Bet365). As the league leaders are normally strong favourites in most matches, these are pretty typical odds.

However, in United’s toughest fixtures it is logically surmised that falling behind would be a larger hurdle for them to overcome and the odds are longer, perhaps nearer the 10/1 mark. I have therefore concluded for this study that if we bet on United to win from behind before every match, then we could expect average odds of 7/1, as a very conservative estimate.

So what’s happened so far in 2012-13? Man United have played 23 Premier League matches and they have achieved a complete turnaround on 7 occasions - comfortably the best record in the top flight. Here are the games they have flipped:

25/08/12: Man Utd 3 Fulham 2
02/09/12: Southampton 2 Man Utd 3
23/09/12: Liverpool 1 Man Utd 2
20/10/12: Man Utd 4 Stoke 2
10/11/12: Aston Villa 2 Man Utd 3
01/12/12: Reading 3 Man Utd 4
26/12/12: Man Utd 4 Newcastle 3

The statistics suggest that United are probably just as likely to retrieve deficits whether they are at home or away. The results also show that every comeback has come against teams outside of the top six, although the odds on a turnaround win at Anfield would have been more lengthy and justify our 7/1 hypothesis.

So let’s look at how we would have done with our wager to this point.

Played: 23
Turnarounds: 7
Total staked (£10 per game): £230
Average odds: 7/1
Estimated profit: £330

We clearly would have enjoyed a massive return on our investment (ROI). This is hardly surprising when you consider that United have been behind but won an extraordinary 30% of their PL fixtures. They have been closer to a 2/1 shot for turnarounds than the 7/1 we can typically get.

And it gets better. If we include the Champions League, the other biggest competition that Fergie’s boys play in, then the 2012-13 stats get even more compelling.

In six CL fixtures to date, United have come from behind for three points HALF the time.

02/10/12: Cluj 1 Man Utd 2
23/10/12: Man Utd 3 Braga 2
07/11/12: Braga 1 Man Utd 3

So for all PL and CL matches combined, here are our figures. Note that I have adjusted the average odds downwards to allow for the lack of ‘tough’ games United have played so far in Europe.

Played: 29
Turnarounds: 10
Total staked (£10 per game): £290
Average odds: 6/1
Estimated profit: £410

Remarkably, even as our sample size gets larger and the average odds diminish, the profits soar. We would now be looking at an ROI in the region of 141%. Even if we assume that this has been a freakish few months for the Old Trafford outfit, the pattern would have to change dramatically before it looked like a bad long-term bet.

But why is this trend happening? On the one hand, United are a brilliant team with a never-say-die attitude. But the other side of the coin is that they are defensively vulnerable. Though five points clear at the top of the table, they also have the second worst goals-against record (30) in the top half of the Premier League. It would seem that whilst this dichotomy exists, we have a wonderful betting opportunity to exploit.