If you ever see The Times at the weekend, there is a great columnist called Daniel Finkelstein who uses a lot of statistics and historical match-ups between two teams to produce a decent set of analysis as a guide to whether you can expect your team to win at the weekend. The Fink Tank is obviously all stats, probability and so on, but I still find it fairly compelling to prevent certain 'foolish' bets or avoiding unfounded optimism.
Anyway, I'm not completely sure, but I don't think there is a team in the Premier League that Everton can expect to beat each year at Goodison than West Ham. The home win rating is about 60 per cent. West Ham to win at Goodison is about 17 per cent. A given if ever there was one.
I used Finkelstein's analysis in deciding not to attend yesterday's match opting instead to watch Leicester take on London Irish in the Guinness Premiership at Twickenham. A truly terrible game of rugby but the result was a win for Leicester by the footballing equivalent of a 1-0. Leicester play rugby in the same way Arsenal used to win matches in the days of George Graham; not pretty but successful.
As we approach Wembley, I'd take the worst cup final on record and a 1-0 win for Everton.
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