Can Possession Statistics In Football Guide You To Winning Bets?

Possession In Action

When pundits and commentators mention possession they almost always follow their opening statement with “but possession dosent win you games”.

It doesn't but it gives you an indication of how a team controlled the ball and ultimately their game.

Knowing this could lead us as punters to future overpriced bets if we know that a team controls the ball more often than their opponents.

Obviously, there are other factors in winning games XG, striker form, leaky defences, form, injuries, managerial tactics to name but a few.

As we are looking solely at making winning future bets then I would say possession statistics need to be in your arsenal.

Therefore based solely on possession in previous games, below are the possession stats of each championship team in relation to their current league position.

Ahead of the Possession table, I have highlighted teams with excellent possession stats who could offer some value betting opportunities. 

I have broken the groups down to make it easier for readers to consider betting on these teams - but remember this idea of a possible betting system is based solely on possession stats. 

The table is collated after week 14 of the 2020/21 Championship Season. 

The first table are the stars in possession.

Look to their betting odds in the next 4 games especially when they are playing as indicated below 

Huddersfield: Home and Away

Norwich: Home

Blackburn: Home and Away

Bournemouth: Away

The next table is more surprising teams with decent possession, here the odds maybe more even more interesting because of their poor league positions- remember it's just based on possession. 

Derby have had more home possession than Bournemouth yet Derby are bottom !. 

A clear indication for those who DONT RATE possession stats, but let us see how Derby get on in their next few games. 

To a degree the same with Forest, who are in 21st place. 

QPR match their home and away possession stats, but compared to their current position (15th) they may be overpriced both home and away. 

Derby: Home

Nottingham Forest: Home

QPR: When they are outsiders. 

Championship Possessional Ranking

Here is the overall table. 

Remember a team may have a brilliant home possession and terrible away possession.

The biggest discrepancy between home and away is actually Brentford who have 50% at home and 60% away after 14 games. 

Testing Possession Stats In December

We are looking at 7 teams in total when they play games in December

Some of our 7 teams will meet each other during December so will ignore those games, and just focus on games where the 7 are NOT meeting.

With some of our 7 we are just focusing on their home or away games or all their games. 

30 games in total. 

• Blackburn: Home and Away
• Bournemouth: Away
• Derby: Home
• Huddersfield: Home and Away
• Norwich: Home
• Nottingham Forest: Home
• QPR: When they are outsiders. 

• Blackburn v Millwall - 2.00
• Blackburn v Norwich - Lost
• Brentford v Blackburn - Drew
• Bristol City v Blackburn - Lost
• Blackburn v Rotherham - 1.66
• Stoke v Blackburn - Lost
• Blackburn v Sheffield Wednesday - Drew

• Barnsley v Bournemouth - 2.30
• Swansea v Bournemouth - Drew
• Luton v Bournemouth - Drew
• Brentford v Bournemouth - Lost

• Derby v Coventry - Postponed
• Derby v Stoke City - Drew
• Derby v Swansea - 3.0
• Derby v Preston - Lost

• Cardiff v Huddersfield - Lost
• Huddersfield v Sheffield Wednesday - 2.75
• Huddersfield v Watford - 3.40
• Coventry v Huddersfield - Drew
• Barnsley v Huddersfield - Lost

• Norwich v Sheffield Wednesday -1.80
• Norwich v Cardiff -1.83 

• Notts Forest v Watford - Drew
• Notts Forest v Brentford -Lost
• Notts Forest v Sheffield Wednesday - 2.37
• Notts Forest v Birmingham City - Drew

• Millwall v QPR - Drew
• QPR v Reading - Lost
• Wycombe v QPR - Drew
• QPR v Swansea - Lost

I will check the odds at kick-off and see at the end of the 30 games whether a profit has been made from the above matches, and see if possession does win matches!!

If systems are an area of betting you are interested in please check out the brilliant betting school article titled - betting systems and strategies. 

System Conclusion

I took teams with strong possession statistics (home or away) and attempted to judge games based on these possession stats. 

I think we can say in this small experiment that possession stats in individual games made little difference in determining results. 

9 wins in 30 games is a 30% strike rate and look randomly distributed. 

8 wins came from home teams with only Bournemouth winning away. 

11 of the games had teams with strong away possession stats, so 1 win is poor. 

19 games featured home teams with strong possession stats, so 8 wins from 19 is 42%.

The average home wins for all teams this season is 42% so you can see there is no difference. 

No one team in the experiment performed exceptionally. 

Norwich won both their home games but that would have been expected with them doing so well so far this season. 

I will revisit possession stats to see if I can glean some advantage in Championship games but for the moment it will not feature heavily in my betting strategy.

To read more about systems and strategies please visit the betting school. 

February 2021 Possession Stats

After the initial experiment showed no real bias towards teams that had good possession stats I decided to revisit and see if I could find any nuggets of helpful possession info. 

At the end of January 2021, I shall look at each side's Home and Away Possession stats, and select the team that has the best possession stats in each game. 

I shall then update each matchday.

In February there will be around 6 games for each team.