Who wins the football?

Portsmouth have dumped their manager-will it change their results? Chelsea are on a winning streak-does it mean anything? Media pundits and sports fans-and punters-devote time and energy to speculation about who will win Saturday's beautiful game. The discussions-in pubs, newspapers and dressing rooms-are usually based on subjective opinion, or evidence that is at best partial or impressionistic. Can statisticians do better? John Goddard offers a large-scale analysis of patterns in English league results from the past 35 football seasons-new managers, winning and losing streaks, home advantages and all.