The opening month of the season has showcased many of the reasons why English soccer is the most popular in the world, with dramatic derbies, controversial celebrations, great goals, last-gasp winners and the occasional upset. Yet, for favourite backers, the season has been gloriously predictable.
The most remarkable feature of the Premier League season, from a betting viewpoint, is the regularity with which the most fancied teams have won. By my reckoning, 30 teams have started at odds-on this season and 26 have won - a phenomenal strike-rate of 87 per cent. Backing all those teams would have yielded a handsome profit, a highly unusual turn of events.
One factor is that the number of draws has been very low, with just four in the first 56 games of the season and only one in those 30 games that had an odds-on favourite. If a hot favourite doesn't win, the next most likely outcome is a stalemate, so inevitably the low number of draws has resulted in a much higher win rate for the most fancied teams.
There has been some luck along the way. Aside from Manchester United's highly controversial stoppage-time winner against Manchester City last weekend, there have been last-minute winners for Chelsea (twice), Tottenham and Everton, as well as other game-changing incidents such as the sending-off of Sean Davis that opened the door for Liverpool to come back for victory over 10-man Bolton.
That luck, as the old adage says, may balance itself out in the coming months, and certainly the draw rate is likely to return to the more normal 25-29 per cent over the course of the season, but this weekend is another where odds-on backers will be expecting a bumper return.
Eight teams are odds-on - Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham, Everton, Arsenal, Sunderland and Manchester City - and six are facing opponents in the bottom half of the fledgling table, with the two exceptions being Tottenham at home to Burnley (ninth in the table) and Manchester United away to Stoke (10th). Not too many punters will envisage a problem for Tottenham, who are coming off a 5-1 win at Preston in the League Cup and have won all three league games so far against teams outside the big four (plus a 2-1 home win over Liverpool). Burnley have a 100 per cent record at home, but on the road they have failed to score in three games.