One question we’ve been asked a few times over the years is whether there’s something in the game that might make your team lose form in the second half of the season, dropping you down the league table and ruining your season.
Having coded the game ourselves we know there’s nothing that should cause that to happen; the results are calculated in exactly the same way whether it’s week 1 or week 42. To confirm this, we carried out some in-depth analysis of tens of thousands of results covering every week of the season.
We analysed the results from 1000 completely random, anonymous games saved on our server. These were spread across all 7 divisions, from teams fighting for survival at the bottom of the league to teams challenging for titles.
We wanted to see if there was any drop-off in form during the second half of the season, or perhaps even closer to the end. The only criteria was that we excluded any saved games which had been loaded and saved excessively, meaning the results could have been manipulated by the users.
The data confirmed that the spread of results is incredibly consistent across the whole season. On average, in the first half of the season (weeks 1 - 21) the users' teams picked up 35.7 points.
In the second half of the season (weeks 22 - 42) the teams picked up slightly more points: 36.3. So instead of form dropping off in the second half of the season, most teams actually do better.
This was backed up when we analysed the league positions over the season. During the second half of the season, on average, teams were 1 place higher (or 0.7 places to be precise) than they were in the first half.
Finally we split the season into three chunks of 14 games, just to see if there was a dip in form closer to the end of the season. Again, there was no sign of this in the data. Across each of the three “thirds” of the season, the teams consistently picked up 24 points on average.
Being precise about it, the middle third of the season (weeks 15 - 28) was actually when form was slightly worse, with teams averaging 23.7 points compared to 24.2 in the first third (weeks 1 - 14) and 24.1 in the final third (weeks 29 - 42).
The middle third of the season tends to be when clubs often have the most intense set of fixtures due to cup commitments, so perhaps it’s not surprising that this is the time of the season when results might take a very slight dip. But there was definitely no sign of a general slump at the end of the campaign.
That’s not to say that end of season collapses don’t happen - of course they will happen in the game sometimes, just like they will in real life. But overall, every poor run at the end of the season should eventually be balanced out by another season where you end with a good run instead.
The good news is that, as Chairman of your club, you can do a few things to mitigate the chances of your team’s form dropping off towards the end of the season.
See this blog post for some tips!
Full Results of Data Analysis
Rounded | Precise | |||
Avg Points 1 | Avg Position 2 | Avg Points 1 | Avg Position 2 | |
Weeks 1 - 21 | 36 | 8 | 35.7 | 7.7 |
Weeks 22 - 42 | 36 | 7 | 36.3 | 7 |
Weeks 1 - 14 | 24 | 8 | 24.2 | 7.9 |
Weeks 15 -28 | 24 | 7 | 23.7 | 7.3 |
Weeks 29 - 42 | 24 | 7 | 24.1 | 6.9 |
1 This is the average number of points accumulated from the league matches during this period (eg 36 points from 21 games or 24 points from 14 games).
2 This is the average league position during this period.