Mild Rover wrote:Looking just at Rovers pre-Derby form over the last few seasons, which only tells half the story of course, we have better form in the run-up to derbies we win than those we lose.
Tbh, it's surprisingly rare for us to go into the game on the back of either two wins
or two losses, but even so...
Excluding round 1 in 2011, Rovers are 17w-1d-18L in SL in the three games prior derbies we won, since 2008. Before derbies lost it is 9-2-16. I doubt it is statistically significant, but it'd be interesting (to me
) to see if something similar is reflected in Hull's pre-Derby form.
Been reading moneyball, innit?
Of course, it isn't strongly predictive of what will happen over 80 minutes, but I think dismissing form before these games could be one of those received wisdom things that doesn't necessarily stand up to scrutiny.
Same thing for Hull (just can't help myself).
The odd cup fixture against SL opposition might have crept through - that scroll bar on the FC website results record was too fiddly for me to double check.
Before Derby wins - 14W, 1D, 12L
Before Derby defeats - 14W, 2D, 20L
So while there are plenty of exceptions, across a few years I think there is a trend that show form isn't quite as irrelevant as is sometimes assumed.
On testimonials, Kris Welham made his debut in 2006, I think - which'd make this his tenth season.
