Review of starting odds and final positions in the top four leagues

After just completing my predictions for the 2011/12 season, I have stored away the odds for each of the divisions. This made me wonder what were the starting odds of the eventual winners to see how well the bookies can predict the final positions. Well as you would expect the Premier League is quite easy, with the top seven clubs coming in the top seven ante post odds. However beyond that the performance is pretty poor. For the other three leagues (can’t get hold of ante post conference odds), the average rank of the winner and second place in the initial odds were 5.3 and 6.6. So, if you have gone by the bookies favourites, you might not get what you bargained for! The table below shows how last season ended up. If you had put a £1 accumulator on those four teams, you would have won £7507!

	ENG	ENG	OTHER	OTHER	WAL	WAL	Total No Apps	Total Apps%
Row Labels	No Apps	Apps%	No Apps	Apps%	No Apps	Apps%	No Apps	Apps%
Cardiff	61	49%	56	45%	8	6%	125	100%
Southampton	63	46%	73	54%		0%	136	100%
West Ham	61	44%	70	50%	8	6%	139	100%
Hull	60	44%	77	56%		0%	137	100%
Manchester United	54	40%	78	57%	4	3%	136	100%
Norwich	52	39%	81	61%		0%	133	100%
Crystal Palace	53	38%	76	54%	11	8%	140	100%
Tottenham	44	35%	82	65%		0%	126	100%
Everton	43	35%	81	65%		0%	124	100%
Liverpool	46	35%	85	64%	2	2%	133	100%
Fulham	43	31%	97	69%		0%	140	100%
Aston Villa	37	28%	95	72%		0%	132	100%
Sunderland	38	28%	96	70%	3	2%	137	100%
Chelsea	35	25%	105	75%		0%	140	100%
West Bromwich Albion	34	24%	97	70%	8	6%	139	100%
Swansea	28	24%	75	63%	16	13%	119	100%
Arsenal	32	23%	97	70%	10	7%	139	100%
Stoke	29	21%	109	79%		0%	138	100%
Manchester City	23	17%	115	83%		0%	138	100%
Newcastle United	11	8%	124	90%	3	2%	138	100%
Grand Total	847	31%	1769	66%	73	3%	2689	100%