Goalkeepers in red jerseys are harder to beat

A work colleague and fellow blogger - at Arse Online - has written about more research from the British Psychological Society's Annual Conference:

Manuel Almunia's green jersey was also a bad omen if you believe research presented today at the British Psychological Society's Annual Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon by Dr Iain Greenlees and Michael Eynon.

Greenlees and Eynon looked at the performance and the expectation of success of 40 university footballers against goalkeepers wearing black, blue, green, yellow, and red strips.

Each of the 40 strikers took a total of 20 penalties, 10 against a goalkeeper wearing black (the control) and 10 against a goalkeeper wearing either a blue, yellow, green or red shirt. Footballers were asked to estimate how many penalties out of 10 they would score and give a confidence rating for their estimate.

The researchers found that, although there was no difference in how many goals a striker thought he would score, the fewest number of goals were scored against a goalie in red (54 per cent success rate), followed by yellow (69 per cent success rate), then blue and green (72 per cent and 75 per cent, respectively).

So, from an England point of view, Rob Green should wear red.