The Frequency of Winning Streaks

Thirteen – an unlucky number for some. So it proved for Chelsea: just one win shy of equaling Arsenal’s record, their thirteen-match winning streak was finally ended by an in-form Spurs side. While there may be some temporary disappointment amongst Chelsea fans at having failed to set a new record, their winning run has almost certainly propelled them into the Champions League next season and made them clear favourites for the title.

Sir Alex Ferguson would often refer to momentum as being instrumental to success. A winning streak can sweep teams to the title or snatch survival from the jaws of relegation. What constitutes a good streak is clearly dependent on the team, though.  Manchester United are currently on a five-match winning run: such form would certainly be outstanding for a relegation-threatened team, but is it common for a Champions League contender? This question is itself part of a broader one: what is form and how should we measure it?

In this blog I’m going to take a look at some of the statistics of winning streaks, investigating the characteristic length of winning runs in the EPL and how it varies for teams from the top to the bottom of the table.

How well do teams streak?


I started by taking every completed EPL season since 2000/01 and dividing the teams into bins based on their points total at the end of each season (0-40 points, 40-50, 50-60, and so on)[1]. For each bin, I measured the proportion of the teams in that bin that completed a winning streak, varying the length of the streaks from 2 to 10 matches.  For example, of the 54 sides that have finished on between 50 and 60 points since the 2000/01 season, 17 (31%) completed a winning run of at least 4 matches.  Runs were only measured within a single season – they do not bridge successive seasons[2]. The results are summarized in Table 1.


Table 1: The proportion of teams that complete winning runs of two games or longer in the EPL. Teams are divided into bins based on their final points total in a season, from 0-40 points (top row) to >80 points (bottom row).

The top row gives the results for teams that finished on less than 40 points. The columns show the percentage that managed a winning streak, with the length of the streaks increasing from 2 (left column) to >10 matches (right). Three quarters of the teams in this points bin put together a winning streak of at least two games. However, the proportion drops very rapidly for longer runs: only 14% completed a 3-match winning streak and only 7% a 4-match streak. The only team to complete a 5-match winning streak was Newcastle early in 2014/15 (and this was half of the total number of games they won that season).

As you'd expect, the percentage of teams that achieve a winning streak of a given length increases as you move to higher points bins. Every team that has finished with 60 points or more has completed a 3-match winning stream. However, fewer than a quarter of those that finished with less than 70 points completed a 5-match winning streak. In general, the proportion of teams that achieve a winning streak drops off very rapidly as the length of the streak is increased. 

The exception is the title-challenging teams (the bottom row in Table 1): the percentage in this bin falls away more slowly as the the length of the winning streak is increased. 27 of the 29 teams that finished with at least 80 points put together a 5-match winning streak, 13 completed an 8-match streak and 5 completed a 10-match winning streak. This is the success-generating momentum that Ferguson habitually referred to.

In his final 13 seasons (from 2000/01 to 2012/13), Man United put together 14 winning streaks lasting 6 matches or more; in the same period Arsenal managed only 5. United won 7 titles to Arsenal’s 2. For both teams, the majority of these streaks occurred in title-winning seasons. The same applies to Chelsea and, more recently, Man City. Only two title-winning teams have failed to complete a 5-match winning streak: Man United in 2010/11 and Chelsea in 2014/15. The median length of winning streak for the champions is between 7 and 8 games.

Leicester’s 4-match winning streak at the end of the 2013/14 season saved them from relegation. It was also an unusually long run for a team finishing on around 40 points - only four other teams have managed it. Was this a harbinger of things to come? A year later, during their title-winning season, their 5-match winning streak in March/April pushed them over the line.

The implications for form


Only the best teams put together extended winning runs: 40% of EPL teams fail to put together a three-game winning streak and 64% fail to win 4 consecutive games. Perhaps momentum - and the belief and confidence it affords - is only really relevant to the top teams? Does the fixture list throw too many obstacles in the path of the smaller teams? Every 3 or 4 games a smaller team will play one of the top-5 sides, a game that they are likely to lose. This may make it more difficult for them to build up a head of steam.

On the other hand, perhaps smaller teams are able to shrug-off their defeats away to Arsenal or Liverpool and continue as before. In that case, should we discard games against the ‘big teams’ when attempting to measure their form? And to what extent do draws interrupt, or in some cases boost, a team's momentum? These are all questions that I intend to return to in future blogs.

Unbeaten Runs


Finally, I’ll leave you with the equivalent table for unbeaten runs. While the typical length of unbeaten runs in each bins is about twice as long as winning runs, most of the conclusions above still apply.

Table 2: The proportion of teams that complete an unbeaten run of length 2 or longer in the EPL. Teams are divided into bins based on their final points total in a season, from less than 40 points (top row) to more than 80 (bottom).

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Thanks to David Shaw for comments.

[1] The total number of teams across all bins was 320: 16 seasons with 20 teams per season.
[2] Note that the runs are inclusive - if a team achieves a 3-match streak it will also have achieved a 2-match streak.




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