Week 1 was a good one for the favorites, with every team that my model had simulated to have at least a 45% chance of winning, getting their three points. Only Burnley with a 43% chance of a winning failed to get their win, instead having to settle for a draw.
If that pattern holds, things don’t look good for Arsenal and their trip to Stanford Bridge to face Chelsea.
Chelsea vs Arsenal
Chelsea got a much easier match to start the season going away to Huddersfield Town where they took care of business scoring three goals from 2.2 xG (including one penalty) while conceding zero goals from just 0.5 xG.
When the two teams face off just a couple of weeks ago in Dublin Arsenal got the win on penalties but the early part of the match was dominated by Chelsea.
I am going to hope that Unai Emery so what tactical tweak worked allowing Arsenal to get back into that match and is able to implement that from the start this Saturday.
The rest of the Week One odds look like this:
All of the other top six contenders are big favorites to win again, with both Tottenham and Manchester CIty overwhelming favorites by more than 75%. Arsenal getting at least a point will go a long way to make sure that they don’t have a six point gap from all of their rivals.
If you are interested in the detailed odds (like the ones for Chelsea vs Arsenal) I provide these for every match on my Patreon page here.
Finishing Odds
Using the same match odds that I simulated, I also ran 10,000 simulations of the season as whole. I put a few tables together to show the results in an easily understood (hopefully) visual format.
Simulated Odds
Team | Title | Top 4 | Relegation | Avg Sim Pts | xG Dif |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Team | Title | Top 4 | Relegation | Avg Sim Pts | xG Dif |
Manchester City | 62.6% | 98.2% | 0.0% | 85.76 | 46.07 |
Liverpool | 23.5% | 89.8% | 0.0% | 79.46 | 36.66 |
Tottenham Hotspur | 11.8% | 79.9% | 0.0% | 75.96 | 31.12 |
Chelsea | 4.6% | 61.2% | 0.0% | 71.98 | 25.39 |
Arsenal | 1.8% | 41.2% | 0.0% | 68.53 | 23.45 |
Manchester United | 1.3% | 35.1% | 0.0% | 67.15 | 16.08 |
Leicester City | 0.0% | 1.1% | 2.3% | 51.75 | -0.6 |
Crystal Palace | 0.0% | 1.0% | 2.7% | 50.8 | -5.84 |
Everton | 0.0% | 0.5% | 4.6% | 48.89 | -6.3 |
Southampton | 0.0% | 0.4% | 5.4% | 48.26 | -7.05 |
West Ham United | 0.0% | 0.2% | 8.7% | 46.25 | -9.7 |
Watford | 0.0% | 0.2% | 9.3% | 46.11 | -10.86 |
Bournemouth | 0.0% | 0.2% | 10.8% | 45.36 | -12.63 |
Burnley | 0.0% | 0.2% | 12.0% | 45.04 | -10.84 |
Newcastle United | 0.0% | 0.1% | 12.8% | 44.35 | -12.23 |
Wolverhampton Wanderers | 0.0% | 0.0% | 17.3% | 43.13 | -12.82 |
Brighton & Hove Albion | 0.0% | 0.0% | 21.1% | 41.98 | -15.14 |
Fullham | 0.0% | 0.0% | 47.3% | 36.36 | -21.53 |
Cardiff City | 0.0% | 0.0% | 57.7% | 34.78 | -24.41 |
Huddersfield Town | 0.0% | 0.0% | 70.1% | 32.16 | -28.82 |
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%) with the black bars representing the 10th Percentile and 90th Percentile:
Minimal change from last week, Manchester City remain the big favorites to repeat as Champions with Liverpool the next closest team. The battle for third through sixth is going to be an interesting one to watch with Chelsea creating a bit of daylight after a convincing win against Huddersfield while Arsenal lost and Manchester United struggled to create chances in their win against Leicester City.
The bottom half of the table got tighter (how that is even possible I am not sure) and making a call for the three teams to be relegated is going to be tough.
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. And the updates that were made for this coming year.