1st half of this season v 1st half of last season

There is enough analysis on this blog already without me adding to it by having a page for half season reviews!

However, I think this is probably as good a time as any to comment on how the first half of the season has went for the established systems and in particular, how it compares to last season. There have been 1,363 bets on the systems so far this season against a total last season of 2,784, so we could be 49% of the way through the season. As it happens, last season saw 40% more bets in the second half of the season as a result of all the postponements in November and December due to snow, so whether or not we are 49% of the way through the season is debatable but either way, we’re approaching the half way mark soon I suspect!

How has the season went so far? Well, as you can see in the table below, there is a 13.1% ROI for this season on H/A betting and an ROI of 4.7% for DNB betting.


When you compare this season to last season though, nothing else looks too familiar. Last season, H/A and DNB ended up with very similar returns over the season and interestingly, Homes and Aways ended up with very similar returns. This season, H/A is easily outscoring DNB and Aways are much more profitable than Homes!

As those following the blog for a while will remember, the first half of last season was nothing like the second half of the season. Therefore, possibly, we should be comparing the first half of this season to the first of last season? Here’s the results for the systems split into 3 parts. Part One last season which is up until 31st December, Part Two last season which is from 1st January to season end and part Part One this season which is up until Monday.

This is actually much more interesting to analyse.

As you can see now, the first half of this season isn’t too dissimilar to last season now is it? Of course, it’s not as profitable as last season but then again, we had a massive losing month in September this season that we didn’t have last season. This graph backs up this conclusion that this season isn’t too dissimilar to last season.



When you look at the performance of Homes and Aways and DNB v H/A, you can see that in the first half of last season, Aways did much better than Homes and of course, H/A was a much better strategy than DNB. Hence, the first half of this season actually looks very much like the first half of last season. If it wasn’t for September being as bad as it was, then the first half of this season could actually mirror the first half of last season!

I think it’s very interesting that there does appear to be this season split last season and of course, it does raise a question of what will happen in the next few months? Will it follow last season? Will it be different from last season and be profitable in the next few months?

At the end of the day, I don’t know the answers and therefore, we’ll see what happens as the season progresses.

What I would say is that if the systems have as bad a second half of the season as they had last season, then they don’t have as much profits to fall back on as they had last season! Of course, if they have an OK second half of the season, then they’ll get very close to the performance of the systems last season. If they have a good second half of the season, they’ll beat the performance from last season easily.