"The most dangerous lead in football"

[trentkg]

Erasing post.

[trentkg]

Erasing post.

[andrewnj]

If you look at the statistics for seasons 2005/6 through 2010/11, which is 12216 games, there is no evidence to support the theory that 2-0 is the most dangerous lead in football. Common sense should prevail and obviously 1-0 is the most dangerous lead in football, followed by a 2-0 lead, then a 3-0 lead etc. Obviously, the longer a team has to defend a 2-0 lead the more likely they are to concede a goal, however, they are just as likely to score a third. Therefore, we really can dismiss that from the statistics, and just answer whether a 2-0 lead is harder to defend than a 1-0, or 3-0 lead.

If you look at the statistics attached you will see that when a team has a 2-0 lead they win 91.62% of their games, compared to 67.52% with a 1-0 lead, and 98.85% when there is a 3-0 lead. This is a large enough sample size to discredit the theory.

Andy.

[Des]

I heard Clint Demspey make this claim on a MotD post-match interview, recently (17/12/11, after Fulham's 2-0 win over Bolton?). I had never previously heard the claim made. Perhaps it made some sense in the Cottage changing room, in the context of Fulham's recent painful and costly capitulation, in their final Europa League match, from a 2-0 lead over Odense, to exit the tournament after slipping to a 2-2 draw by conceding with the final touch of the match. Otherwise, it immediately seemed counter-intuitive to me; and these stats suggest that instinctive evaluation was correct. Clever me! I'll be listening out for further repetitions of the claim.

DES

[SaintBobby]

Can the "harder to play ten men" myth be similarly exploded?

[irishpete]

Would love to see some more up to date stats on this. perhaps Milan supporters would suggest 3-0 is a dangerous lead