Carling Cup Final - Springboard to Success?
This Sunday Arsenal and Birmingham City fans will take to Wembley Stadium for the first Cup Final of the 2010-11 season. Arsenal will be keen to lift their first domestic trophy in more than 5 years whilst Birmingham will be hoping to upset the odds in their first Carling Cup final.
Ahead of the match, Opta data have provided SoccerBible with some interesting statistics about what both teams can expect depending on the outcome of the match...
Winning the Carling Cup would be the springboard to a minimum top two Premier League finish for Arsenal, according to new Opta statistics. The stats suggest that lifting the trophy gives an extra incentive to finish the season in a bright manner, putting paid to the myth that teams rest on their laurels after League Cup success.
Statistically, over the past ten years the winner of the competition has achieved a 10% increase in points gathered for the remainder of the season, enough to guarantee a runners-up position at least. Opta data compiled for this weekend s Carling Cup Final reveals that for the successful team the average points haul per league game rises from 1.81 to 1.99 after the final.
Winning finalists have also gone on to do well in other competitions with Liverpool claiming the FA Cup and UEFA Cup in 2001, Chelsea winning the FA Cup in 2007 and Manchester United winning the Premier League in 2009. However, a defeat could spell another barren season for Arsene Wenger - over the past decade losing finalists who were still involved in all four major competitions ended up with nothing at the end of the season.
Of the 20 competition finalists in the last decade, only three have dropped in the table after playing in the final - eight teams have improved their position whilst the other nine stayed put.
This spells good news for Birmingham City who will also be cheered by the fact that in the past decade the only team to be in a relegation place when they played the final was Blackburn Rovers in 2002 who roared up the tabled to finish 10th that season.
As always, we'd love to hear your opinions on this weekends Carling Cup Final. With Arsenal's recent injury news regarding Cesc Fabregas and Theo Walcott, can Birmingham cause an upset?
