The EFL Trophy - Just how good are the Academies?
Spoiler - No tips here, just something to think about when betting on the EFL Trophy.
A year on from the shake up of the Football League Trophy (now the Checkatrade Trophy), we wanted to take a look back and see what we could learn from the results between the Football League sides and the academies. Of course, some sides took the competition more seriously than others, and not all academies were made equal, but it should give us a little helpful context when considering what to expect in this year’s competition.
Before continuing, it’s worth pointing out that the Football League sides have been handed a slightly improved lot for this season, as they will now only face academy sides on home soil. We’ll dig into how home and away results differ a little more as we progress.
So first things first. How did the academy sides get on when facing Football League sides? 51 games were played in the competition between the youngsters and the League 1 and 2 sides, with the following output:
Football League Wins - 24 - 47.4%
Draws - 12 - 23.2%
Academy Wins - 15 - 29.4%
Pretty interesting given the Academy sides dominated the outright betting. In fact, only one made it through the last eight in the competition, suggesting that the young upstarts still had a bit to learn when it came to fighting with the big tough league regulars.
What about how things change when we consider the class of the Football League sides? – Did League One sides do better than League Two sides?
League One Wins - 13 - 52.0%
Draws - 8 - 30.8%
Academy Wins - 5 - 19.2%
League Two Wins - 11 - 42.3%
Draws - 4 - 15.4%
Academy Wins - 11 - 42.3%
So academy sides won roughly twice as often against League Two sides as they did when facing League One sides – probably nothing too surprising, but again, a useful reference point when evaluating games this season.
While we are here, it would be worth questioning whether, given League One sides perform more admirably that their League Two rivals, how do they get on when they face each other? Well it’s interesting. League One sides won almost exactly as often as League Two sides when facing each other, with draws notably rare.
League One Wins -19 - 45.2 %
Draws - 5 - 11.9%
League Two Wins - 18 - 42.9%
Although the sample sizes are smaller, it’s also interesting to note that home and away appeared to hand little advantage in these numbers, with League One sides at home having a 10-2-10 record, and League Two side at home having an 8-3-9 record.
Does it matter which Academy side you play?
There are two divisions afterall. We’ll overall, League sides has a 24-12-15 record as we know, but that moves to 9-7-6 against Academy sides from the top division, and 15-5-9 for those in the second tier.
What about home advantage?
League sides had a 19-7-10 record on home soil, but that dropped to just 5-4-5 when playing away. Basically, a League side travelling to an Acedemy should be expected to give a good account of themselves, but enjoying home advantage gives them a great chance (over 50%) chance of victory (which improves if they are a league one side taking it seriously).
We’ll refer back to a few of these lessons in our preview of Tuesday night’s games