EPL Graphs,October 2011.

The win probability for each team is tracked on a minute by minute basis throughout each game.At any point in a game a team will have a probability of winning the game outright and an associated probability of drawing the game.By multiplying the probability of winning the game by 3 and the probability of drawing by 1 and adding the results together you will get an expected longterm average for the number of points that team will achieve from that position or Expected Points (EP) for short.


Wolves v Swansea and Aston Villa v WBA. 


Two very similar games at kickoff,as the respective home teams would have been expected to emerge victorious in around 50% of these type of matches.But from the 23rd minute onwards the games took very different courses,dramatically illustrating how a low scoring sport can produce twists on turns and make football such a compelling spectacle.


35 minutes into the Wolves Swansea game,the hosts were looking at an average of 0.286 points from an increasingly dire situation while later in the day their near neighbours Aston Villa were comfortably anticipating an average haul of nearly 2.5 points.Come fulltime and Wolves had a point,while Villa had nothing.

Scorers:
0-1,Graham,23'
0-2,Allen,35'
1-2,Doyle,84'
2-2,O'Hara,86'

Scorers:
1-0,Bent,23'
1-0,Red Card+Penalty,Herd,35'
1-0,Penalty miss,Brunt,36'
1-1,Olsson,45'
1-2,Scharner,57'