Spotlight - A peek inside Gary Neville's mind...
Friday 13th November 2015
In your Prem10 – Spotlight email today:
- A peek inside Gary Neville’s mind...
- The Sky Sports ‘Man of the Match’ Award – in numbers...
In the spotlight...
There are no Premier League games this weekend, so I’m using the International break to return to a topic we first touched on in the first month of the season...
Back in August we looked at the Man of the Match market for the Everton v Man City game, which was live on Sky Sports.
BetVictor and Paddy Power offer a Man of the Match market for live TV games, settling the result on the player announced in the Sky Sports commentary.
In that particular game it was Man City playmaker David Silva that caught the eye pre-match at 6/1 – and he duly went on to collect the ‘Man of the Match’ award.
I didn’t go so far as to nominate Silva as a bet that weekend, but I said we’d return to that market with our Value Picks in mind as the season progressed...
A peek inside Gary Neville’s mind...
We now have 40 Sky Sports games in the formbook. The large majority of these Man of the Match selections will have come from Gary Neville, who is Sky’s main man for Super Sunday and Monday Night Football games.
I’ve gone through every game to source the Man of the Match results and compile the table below. As far as I’m aware you can’t find this information, gathered together in one place, anywhere else. Here are the numbers...
Premier League 2015/16 – Sky Sports live TV games:
Match Result
Sky Sports games only |
Sky Sports
Man of the Match |
On losing team |
Scored |
Aston Villa 0 Man City 0 |
Micah Richards (D) |
|
|
Arsenal 1 Spurs 1 |
Dele Alli (M) |
|
|
Stoke 1 Chelsea 0 |
Xherdan Shaqiri (M) |
|
|
Tottenham 3 Aston Villa 1 |
Dele Alli (M) |
|
Yes |
Everton 6 Sunderland 2 |
Arouna Kone (F) |
|
Yes (3) |
Southampton 2 Bournemouth 0 |
Graziano Pelle (F) |
|
Yes |
Sunderland 3 Newcastle 0 |
Yann M’Vila (M) |
|
|
Man Utd 0 Man City 0 |
Nicolas Otamendi (D) |
|
|
Liverpool 1 Southampton 1 |
Christian Benteke (F) |
|
Yes |
Arsenal 2 Everton 1 |
Olivier Giroud (F) |
|
Yes |
Swansea 0 Stoke 1 |
Bojan (F) |
|
Yes |
Newcastle 6 Norwich 2 |
Georginio Wijnaldum (M) |
|
Yes (4) |
Watford 0 Arsenal 3 |
Alexis Sanchez (F) |
|
Yes |
Everton 1 Liverpool 1 |
Romelu Lukaku (F) |
|
Yes |
Arsenal 3 Man Utd 0 |
Alexis Sanchez (F) |
|
Yes (2) |
Chelsea 1 Southampton 3 |
Sadio Mane (M) |
|
Yes |
West Brom 2 Everton 3 |
Romelu Lukaku (F) |
|
Yes (2) |
Watford 0 Crystal Palace 1 |
Brede Hangeland (D) |
|
|
Newcastle 2 Chelsea 2 |
Vurnon Anita (M) |
|
|
Tottenham 1 Crystal Palace 0 |
Son Heung-Min (M) |
|
Yes |
Southampton 2 Man Utd 3 |
Anthony Martial (F) |
|
Yes (2) |
Man City 1 West Ham 2 |
Winston Reid (D) |
|
|
West Ham 2 Newcastle 0 |
Dimitri Payet (M) |
|
Yes (2) |
Sunderland 0 Tottenham 1 |
Eric Dier (D) |
|
|
Leicester 3 Aston Villa 2 |
Riyad Mahrez (F) |
|
|
Man Utd 3 Liverpool 1 |
Daley Blind (D) |
|
Yes |
Southampton 3 Norwich 0 |
Sadio Mane (M) |
|
|
Swansea 2 Man Utd 1 |
Andre Ayew (M) |
|
Yes |
Tottenham 0 Everton 0 |
Tim Howard (GK) |
|
|
Arsenal 0 Liverpool 0 |
Petr Cech (GK) |
|
|
West Brom 2 Chelsea 3 |
Pedro (F) |
|
Yes |
Everton 0 Man City 2 |
David Silva (M) |
|
|
Liverpool 1 Bournemouth 0 |
Christian Benteke (F) |
|
Yes |
Crystal Palace 1 Arsenal 2 |
Santi Cazorla (M) |
|
|
Man City 3 Chelsea 0 |
Sergio Aguero (F) |
|
Yes |
Aston Villa 0 Man Utd 1 |
Daley Blind (D) |
|
|
West Brom 0 Man City 3 |
David Silva (M) |
|
Yes |
Arsenal 0 West Ham 2 |
Winston Reid (D) |
|
|
Stoke 0 Liverpool 1 |
Philippe Coutinho (M) |
|
Yes |
Chelsea 2 Swansea 2 |
Andrew Ayew (M) |
|
Yes |
The Sky Sports ‘Man of the Match’ Award – in numbers...
Those results in summary:
- No player on a losing team has received the Man of the Match award
- 2 of the 40 awards (5%) went to Goalkeepers – both in games that ended 0-0
- 8 went to Defenders (20%)
- 16 went to Midfielders (40%)
- 14 went to Forwards (35%)
- 23 went to a player that scored in the game (58%)
- 20 went to a player that both scored and was on the winning team (50%)
Of course, we can’t take those numbers too literally – the events and player performances that take place in a game obviously determine who the award goes to on the day.
But we can look at the numbers for any common trends, and to get a handle on Mr Neville’s selection process…
For me the key stat here is that a total of 75% of Man of the Match awards have gone to Midfielders and Forwards combined. That tells us straight away that when it comes to measuring up the players and prices available with the likes of BetVictor and Paddy Power on match-day, we should usually concentrate on finding the likely star performers and/ or goal-scorers from the Midfielders and Forwards on show.
Not ground-breaking findings, perhaps – but a 75% trend is a good one to know about and have on your side nonetheless.
It’s also worth noting that eight players in the grid above have received the award twice. The likes of Man City midfielder David Silva (when fit) and Arsenal forward Alexis Sanchez could well prove more profitable in the Man of the Match market for a TV game than backing them in the Anytime Scorer market, for instance.
Fair play, Mr Neville…
Going back to Gary Neville – with tongue firmly in cheek of course – I can confirm that my Man of the Match findings show no detectable bias towards A), Man Utd players or B) the so-called Defenders’ union…
G-Nev has awarded the Man of the Match prize to Man Utd players only on occasions where Man Utd have won the game – which is a habit in line with the overall stats above. While Defenders only receive 20% of all Sky Sports Man of the Match awards.
The next thing I will be looking at – in future Spotlight articles – is the relation between price and number of payouts. By this I mean, can we make money in the long run by backing the likes of the silky-skilled Silva at 6/1 for Man of the Match… or are we better off hunting out the rare but lucrative occasions where a 20/1 shot like West Ham defender Winston Reid takes the prize?
The Man of the Match market is of course a tricky one – we don’t have the luxury of being able to lean over Gary Neville’s shoulder to see what he’s writing in his notebook. We don’t sit behind him at many Premier League games. But I do believe the overall Man of the Match stats can help us identify players and opportunities where we may be able to land an 8/1, 12/1 or 20/1 winner or two from our Value Picks during the course of the season.
More on this topic in future emails.
That’s all for today. Me – and Gary Neville, for that matter – will be back on Premier League duty next weekend.
Lookout for your next Prem10 email on Wednesday, looking ahead to the weekend fixtures.
Until then,
Best wishes,
Oliver Upstone
Prem10
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