A one-sided Christmas: why Wigan and Wolves fear Man Utd and Arsenal this Yuletide

By Brian Sears

23 December 2011

Merry Christmas, one and all.

Although if you're a Wigan or Wolves fan, it might not be too merry. Their next games, respectively at Manchester United on Boxing Day and at Arsenal on 27 December are against teams from whom they have NEVER taken a single Premier League point.

Wigan have played United 12 times in the Premier League and lost 12.

Wolves have played Arsenal six times and lost six.

This is really very bad.

Most 'head-to-heads' over a period of time will yield at least a point at some stage.

But not Wigan v United. Or Wolves v Arsenal. Not in the Premier League era.

And the only other two 'H2H' pairings among the current Premier League clubs that remain so lop-sided are Chelsea v West Brom (Chelsea have won 11 from 11) and Norwich against Fulham (Fulham winning both). See table below for details.

How rare is it not to have a point? Statistically it is 4 out of 171 rare, or happens with a frequency of 2.3 per cent.

Why so?

Because there are 19 teams in this season's Premier League (Swansea excluded) who have - at some stage - met the other teams in this season's Premier League, in Premier League games, both home and away.

So those 19 have each faced the other 18 home and away at least once each, making 171 inter-club head-to-head contests.

And only the four in the graphic below have been completely one-sided to date, with one team taking all the points from all meetings.

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