Five home wins, two draws and three away wins are the expected outcomes from the flurry of midweek Premier League fixtures, according to SportsLab football fans this week.
The top three are the strongest tips to win: an overwhelming 96% predict that Tottenham will beat struggling Wigan, while 87% expect a Man Utd win at home to Stoke, and more than two-thirds of SportsLab fans believe Manchester City will return from their fixture at Goodison Park with a full three points.
Elsewhere, Fulham host West Brom, Norwich visit Sunderland and QPR travel to Aston Villa – a majority of SportsLab football fans expect home wins in each of these fixtures.
Liverpool and Arsenal are also tipped by a majority of SportsLab fans to build on recent momentum with away wins over Wolves and Bolton respectively.
Perhaps as a result of Swansea’s strong home form – including their stunning win at Arsenal last week – a draw is predicted between the Swans and Chelsea by 42%. However, 39% believe the London club will take the three points. A similarly tight affair is expected between Blackburn and Newcastle: the SportsLab prediction is a draw (43%), but 36% expect Newcastle to win.
The results from the last round of Premier League fixtures, and how the SportsLab predictions fared, are shown below.
There were several notable surprises, including the two fixtures fans were most united on: Stoke and Liverpool, which were strongly tipped to pick up wins (at home to West Brom and away at Bolton respectively), but were actually beaten in the event.
Fulham’s big win over Newcastle was another result you didn’t expect, along with the Norwich-Chelsea stalemate and Everton’s 1-1 draw with Blackburn. The draw predicted between Wolves and Aston Villa looked like it would happen until Robbie Keane popped up with a late winner.
However, the four matches that you did forecast correctly stack up well compared to professional BBC pundit Mark Lawrenson, who also managed to predict four correct results.
