17th Dec 2016 | Premier League
Crystal Palace v Chelsea Preview
Seasons have been characterised by a streak of results which distracts from the underlying competitiveness of both sides.
The early kick-off is a top v bottom type clash, on paper at least but the league can tell fibs, even at this stage of the season.
The problem with Chelsea and Palace is that their league positions aren’t a reflection of their underlying numbers. I have Chelsea pitched around third best in the league and Palace ninth but infuriatingly they’ve strung a sequence of positive/negative results depending who you support.
Winning and losing sequences are more common than people think. Given the number of games player over a season (38) there’s plenty of opportunity for someone to go on a run. If the probability of losing a game were always evens, then during a full season we can expect a longest losing streak of five games (Log38)/-Log(0.5).
This is a long-winded way of saying that betting markets overreact to streaks. Chelsea and Palace are what they are, a top-3 team vs mid-table team but whose narratives are pinned to a common statistical quirk.
That makes Palace a cracking bet at 7/5 (Bet365) in the double chance market.
Odds correct at time of publishing: 04:19 17th Dec, 2016 but subject to change
