Gameweek 4 produced 87 substitutions across ten Premier League matches. On 82 occasions the player who came off and the player who replaced him reached a tally between them that the starter had not reached on his own.
That is the whole point of this column. Under Super Sub and Sub On Play On rules the replacement's numbers continue the line, so on those markets the pair's combined figure is the one that matters. We compute it every week because nobody else does.
Zian Flemming, 27 minutes, six thresholds. He came on for Emersonn in the 63rd minute of Crystal Palace 2-3 Ipswich Town and produced three shots, two on target and a foul. Emersonn had managed three shots and one on target before he went off, so the pair finished on six shots and three on target between them.
Flemming alone carried the pair past 1+, 2+ and 3+ shots, 1+ and 2+ shots on target, and 1+ fouls. Six separate lines, from less than half an hour on the pitch.
The most efficient of the week was smaller still: Ben Gannon-Doak cleared three lines in eight minutes at AFC Bournemouth against Brentford.
Not every market behaves the same way. This is how often, when a starter finished short of a line, the replacement took the pair over it:
| Line | Starter short | Pair cleared | Clear rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2+ fouls | 25 | 12 | 44.0% |
| 3+ tackles | 25 | 10 | 40.0% |
| 1+ shots | 34 | 13 | 38.2% |
| 1+ fouls | 36 | 11 | 30.6% |
| 2+ shots | 25 | 9 | 28.0% |
| 2+ tackles | 30 | 8 | 26.7% |
| 3+ shots | 8 | 3 | 25.0% |
| 1+ tackles | 23 | 5 | 21.7% |
| 2+ shots on target | 19 | 4 | 21.1% |
| 1+ shots on target | 56 | 7 | 12.5% |
The pattern is consistent with what we have seen all season and it is worth stating clearly: contact markets carry further than shooting markets. A replacement is nearly four times as likely to take a pair over 2+ fouls as over 1+ shots on target. Fouls and tackles come from simply being on the pitch and competing; shots on target require the game to come to you, and a 25-minute cameo rarely offers that.
Shots on target is the trap. Fifty-six starters finished short of one, and the replacement rescued the pair total just seven times.
Four lines each, all from short appearances:
One pair worth noting for the reverse reason: at Sunderland 0-2 Arsenal, Myles Lewis-Skelly was withdrawn at half time having taken no shots and committed two fouls. Bruno Guimaraes added two shots and one on target in 44 minutes, taking the pair to 2 shots and 1 on target.
Across 40 Premier League fixtures this season, 339 lines have been cleared by a pair that the starter alone did not reach. The breakdown by market:
| Line | Cleared by the pair, season |
|---|---|
| 2+ fouls | 50 |
| 2+ tackles | 46 |
| 1+ fouls | 42 |
| 1+ shots | 38 |
| 3+ tackles | 38 |
| 2+ shots | 33 |
| 1+ shots on target | 31 |
| 3+ shots | 27 |
| 1+ tackles | 25 |
| 2+ shots on target | 9 |
The top three are all contact markets. That is four gameweeks of the same finding, and it is the reason our own bet builders lean on fouls and tackles rather than shots when a named player is a substitution risk. Per-90 numbers for every player here are on the player stats hub.
Every figure above is arithmetic on our own match data. It counts thresholds that a substitution pair reached and a starter did not.
It says nothing about whether a bookmaker offered any of these lines, whether anybody backed one, whether Super Sub applied to that market, or how it settled. We cannot see bets, so we do not write about them. What we can see is what the players actually produced, and that is what is published here.
Our own daily slips, with a settled public ledger, are on the Daily Acca, and the round-by-round column is at Premier League betting predictions.
18+. Please gamble responsibly - begambleaware.org. Match data from our own database, Gameweek 4 complete.