Digging in for December

AS THE Premier League’s top five brace themselves for a hectic festive schedule, matches that could go a long way to deciding the destination of the title, statisticians are offering up a word of warning to current leaders Manchester United.

There’s an adage in football that the team top of the table at Christmas goes into the New Year with a huge psychological advantage en route to being crowned champions; but history suggests that like so many old wives tales, it doesn’t always stand up to close scrutiny.

In fact, statistics show that since the Football League was formed in 1888, 49 teams out of 111 who were top at Christmas went on to win the title, less than 50 per cent – and the figure for Premier League history is even worse with little more than a third of teams who were top on December 25 being crowned champions.