Goalscorer Odds - Stop Losing Money Backing The Wrong Players In The Wrong Places

Football

By monkeytennis

Home and away form is one of the biggest considerations when betting on football, Stoke are often a great bet at home but a dreadful bet away, backed up by their 21 home points this season and their 9 away points. I like stats when there are strong reasons for those stats, Stoke’s pitch is a very narrow giving them an advantage from set pieces (from which they are well drilled) and there is also the famous 12th man for Stoke, their home crowd.

The same goes for players too but I don’t think people put enough consideration into this when betting on goalscorers. Certain players are more likely to score their goals either home or away and although that can often be determined by how good their team is at home or away, it can also be determined by the type of player involved with many top strikers struggling for goals away from home even when their team does well away from home.

In the 10/11 Premiership season Dimitar Berbatov scored 16 goals at home from 12 starts and 2 sub appearances, Wayne Rooney scored just 4 from 12 starts and 3 sub appearances. On the road in the same season Berbatov scored just 4 goals from 12 starts and 6 sub appearances whilst Wayne Rooney scored 7 in just 13 starts.

In that season backing Berbatov to score at home and Rooney to score away would have been a great strategy, however if you’d backed Rooney at home and Berbatov away it wouldn’t. Clearly showing how much consideration needs to go into goalscorer bets depending on teams being home or away.

In Fernando Torres’ first season at Liverpool he scored a remarkable 24 league goals. How many of those came at away grounds? Half? A quarter? Actually he only managed 3 away goals that season, meaning 87.5% of his goal haul came at Anfield. He may be a shadow of his former self but his goalscoring ability away from home hasn’t got any worse, he’s scored 3 away goals in the league this season for Chelsea!

This Season

So what about this season? Who are the players to back for goals at home and who should we be punting on away from home?

At the time of writing here are the top goalscorers at home:

Player	Appearances	Goals
Adam Le Fondre	3 (8)	8
Luis Suarez	12	8
Michu	12	8
Olivier Giroud	6 (6)	8
Robin Van Persie	10 (2)	8
Demba Ba	10	7
Theo Walcott	8 (3)	7
Carlos Tevez	9 (3)	6

And here are the top goalscorers away from home:

Player	Appearances	Goals
Robin Van Persie	10 (2)	10
Luis Suarez	12	9
Gareth Bale	11	8
Juan Mata	9 (1)	7
Steven Fletcher	11	7
Demba Ba	9 (1)	6
Edin Dzeko	4 (7)	6
Jermain Defoe	11 (1)	6
Rickie Lambert	9 (3)	6
Santi Corzola	12	6

Now some of those players seem decent bets home and away, Van Persie, Suarez and Demba Ba all have similar stats wherever they play, in fact the former two players actually have better ratios away from home.

Some of the more startling inclusions are:

Adam Le Fondre

Le Fondre has scored 10 goals this season and 8 of those have come at home despite limited appearances. Considering his tendency to come off the bench to score he probably appeals most as a last goalscorer bet when Reading are at home.

Gareth Bale

Bale clearly gets more space to play away from White Hart Lane when teams are less likely to park the bus or double up on him, 8 of his 10 goals have come away from home so despite having the reputation as a bit of a softy he looks to relish playing away from home.

Juan Mata

Mata seems to have improved again this season and he has so far scored 9 goals in the league, 7 of which have come away from home. He is the sort of player who probably attracts plenty of goalscorer bets as he’ll never be the favourite (and you can often rely on Torres not to score) but the stats show punters at Stamford Bridge could be wasting their money.

Steven Fletcher

This one really surprises me as Sunderland have a reputation as being a home team. They’ve only scored 13 goals on the road and Fletcher has more than half of those with 7 of his 10 goals this season so far coming away from home. Sunderland will often be a big price on the road and that could mean Fletcher is value to score in his away matches.

There are plenty of other interesting players on that list but those seem the ones really worth highlighting to make my point.

Other Leagues

These sorts of stats are reflected in other leagues too, in the Championship no one has scored more home goals than Glenn Murray for Crystal Palace (16) yet he has managed just 6 away from home. Meanwhile two thirds of Thomas Ince’s 15 goals for Blackpool have come on the road. In League One Lucas Akins is one of those players who scores many more away from home (7/9) whilst in League Two Gillingham’s Danny Kedwell has netted 10 league goals with just one of those coming on his travels.

Where To Find This Info

A great resource for football stats in general and in particular the difference in player form home and away check out WhoScored.com. The stats above show how important home and away form is to players, not just teams.