xGunners: Premier League week 15 simulated odds

After a slate of midweek matches it seems, the schedule has moved into overdrive with no end in sight as the holiday period brings nine matches over the next 30 days.

Before looking to far in to the future for what lies ahead there is a big match this weekend with Arsenal facing off against Manchester United.

The Arsenal vs Manchester United match is the main event but that is not the only match going on and I have the simulated odds for all of the Premier League matches this weekend.

Week 15 Simulated Odds:

Arsenal vs Manchester United is the closest match of the weekend, and it isn’t that surprising as the teams are essentially tied in my team rankings (see below) with Arsenal at 126.8 and Manchester United at 126.5.

Everton and their new manager Sam Allardyce are favorites to get their season back on track against Huddersfield Town.

The biggest favorites this weekend are shockingly (it’s not) Manchester City against West Ham. I have begun adding a new simulation to start calculating the odds that Manchester City finishes the season “invincible” as of right now they are 0.24% (24 out of 10,000 simulations) to go without a loss. I will keep looking at this and reporting the results until they lose... or don’t.

Simulated finish and points

Using those same 10,000 simulations, I was able to generate data for the entire league for the season. I put a few tables together to show the results in an easily understood (hopefully) visual format.

This table shows the chances of a team’s finishing the season in each of the 20 places in the table:

This chart, a “box and whisker” plot, shows the range of probable points for each team in the league based on the simulations. Gray represents the lower half of the midrange of possible points (25-50%), yellow the upper half (50-75%):

This last table is pretty straightforward. It’s the odds of a team winning the title, finishing in the top four, or being relegated, and the average number of points earned in the 10,000 simulations run for this data:

Team ratings and expected points

Next up: team ratings, which are derived from the inputs that go into the model.

These team rankings use data from the 2015-16 season through the current season. Data that is more recent is weighted more heavily. Rankings are compared to league average, and scaled so that 100 is average. Each point above or below 100 represents 1 percent better or worse than the average team.

That Manchester City team is really good and trying to figure out who is best among the rest of the top 6, well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Last but not least is expected points for each team this season.

There are two expected points totals shown here. The first is based on the pre-match odds that I do before every match, as I have done above, and the second is based on the post-match xG that each team produces. More information on xPoints can be found here.

If you are interested in the methodology of the model, or for any of the work I do here, you can find that on my personal blog.