A Premier League season in which we hear different answers to the same question

"Chance is bigger than you, idiot." So says Papa Sanou in a film called Only the Animals. I think it is the best line in the film.

I watched Only the Animals over Christmas. It is set mostly in France but there are some scenes in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

Armand lives in Abidjan. He is a young scammer who hopes to swindle a man in France called Michel. Armand and Michel are talking online. Michel does not know he is talking to Armand. He thinks he is communicating with a beautiful young woman called Armandine who is also in France. He is smitten by what he does not realise are hacked pictures.

Armand goes to see a shaman called Papa Sanou.

Armand: “I want to hook a pigeon, make lots of money.”

Papa Sanou: “I know. You have a photo of the bait?”

Armand shows Papa Sanou a photo of the woman he has named Armandine.

Papa Sanou: “You’re lucky. She’s beautiful.”

Armand: “It’s not luck. I chose her well, bought photos, videos.”

Papa Sanou: “It’s chance.”

Armand: “No…”

Papa Sanou: “Shut up! Chance is bigger than you, idiot.”

Armand thinks he is making things happen. Watching football he would think he knew which players were making things happen, and how they were making things happen. He would be far from the only one.

Two conspicuous stats from the early weeks of this Premier League season were a high number of goals and a low number of draws.

Across the first four rounds of fixtures there were 3.8 goals per game. Across the 12 rounds since then there have been 2.5 goals per game – if anything, slightly lower than the rate for recent full seasons.

Only three of the first 38 games were drawn, eight per cent. Since then 36 out of 117 games have been drawn, 31 per cent – if anything, slightly higher than the rate for recent full seasons.

When lots of goals were going in, and in different numbers for each team, nearly everyone seemed to think they knew why. Every explanation I heard was plausible. All of them were wrong.

Humans as a group are useless at making predictions. One of the reasons they are so bad at foreseeing the future is that with the benefit of hindsight they are so good at coming up with plausible explanations of the past.

So good that sometimes they do not notice they have claimed two incompatible causes for the same effect.

While Arsenal were going seven Premier League games without a win they were criticised for putting in too many crosses. When Newcastle were knocked out of the EFL Cup by Championship side Brentford after some Premier League results that should have been perfectly acceptable they were criticised for putting in too few crosses.

One team were getting bad results because they were doing something too often, and another team were getting what were called bad results because they were not doing it often enough. Really? I do not believe it.

When one part of a team’s play is used to explain their results, ask yourself whether it has a meaningful impact on results – and if it does, whether it is likely to continue.

When I started working for the Racing Post I wrote mostly about spread betting. Spread traders, I felt, were even sharper than odds compilers. One of the phrases I picked up from them was about a change in basis.

When something unusual happened they would ask themselves whether there had been a change in basis. Had the fundamentals changed? Things that should influence results? If they answered yes, they would accept they were in a new situation and price differently. Nearly always, though, they answered no. They would carry on pricing in the same way and catch out all those who bet on more weirdness anyway.

Tottenham defended against Manchester City, broke out to score twice and won 2-0. Manager Jose Mourinho was hailed as a tactical genius. Tottenham defended against Arsenal, broke out to score twice and won 2-0. Mourinho was acclaimed again.

Tottenham defended against Leicester, conceded twice and lost 2-0. Mourinho was criticised for his caution. Tottenham scored in the first minute against Wolves then defended until almost the last minute, when they conceded an equaliser. Mourinho was censured again for his caution.

Spurs will play the same way in different games and Mourinho’s tactics will be either praised or condemned depending only on the result. Sometimes the tactics will work and sometimes they will not. How often? That is a good question, one worth asking.

It makes no sense to say Tottenham won this game because they played defensively and did not win that game because they played defensively. Why do such things happen? Papa Sanou would shout the answer at us: “Chance is bigger than you, idiot.”

Out with the new to make way for something else

New Year’s Day for many people is a time for resolution. I think it should be a time for irresolution. Actually I think almost every day is an appropriate time for irresolution. By which I mean: hold on, do not get carried away, do not jump to conclusions, pause and reflect.

Tony Hancock said in one of his Half Hour sitcoms: “Isn’t it strange how just enough happens every day to fill all the newspapers in the world?”

The things that do get into newspapers are striking things that are different at least in some way from what happened the day before. Which must mean that the striking things that happened the day before were not reproduced exactly, if at all. Irresolution is a state of mind that sits well with the world as it really is.

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