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It is the first weekend of matches without a match up between two top six teams. There isn’t a glamour tie to look forward to but there are still quite a few matches that will have baring on the standings.
Arsenal continue #Project24 with a trip to Cardiff. Liverpool look to keep their lead at the top of the table with a trip to face a Leicester City team who have somehow scraped six points from their opening three matches. Tottenham have a “top of the table” clash against Watford who have look surprisingly good (even if I have them over performing their expected goals by three points).
For the Manchester teams, City host Newcastle United and will see if they can break the record for most possession in a match. United see if they can stop their crisis with a match against the also in crisis Burnley.
Never a dull weekend in the Barclays.
Cardiff City vs Arsenal
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Arsenal are heavy favorites but this could be a tricky match up. Cardiff have yet to score a goal this season but their route one football might find joy against Arsenal’s high line and aggressive fullbacks. Cardiff City average the longest average pass length in the league so far this season with an average pass length of 15 meters.
The Rest of the matches:
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If you are interested in the detailed odds (like the ones for Cardiff 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 | 65.3% | 99.4% | 0.0% | 88.65 | 61.73 |
| Liverpool | 25.4% | 95.8% | 0.0% | 83.52 | 37.25 |
| Chelsea | 11.4% | 89.1% | 0.0% | 79.62 | 39.84 |
| Tottenham Hotspur | 3.1% | 69.4% | 0.0% | 75.13 | 20.82 |
| Arsenal | 0.6% | 35.2% | 0.0% | 70.11 | 10.75 |
| Manchester United | 0.2% | 16.5% | 0.0% | 66.08 | 12.76 |
| Everton | 0.0% | 0.8% | 0.0% | 55.19 | 2.21 |
| Leicester City | 0.0% | 0.5% | 0.1% | 54.08 | 4.38 |
| Bournemouth | 0.0% | 0.5% | 0.2% | 53.6 | 9.74 |
| Watford | 0.0% | 0.4% | 0.1% | 53.22 | 3.53 |
| Wolverhampton Wanderers | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.7% | 49.81 | 11.52 |
| West Ham United | 0.0% | 0.0% | 2.6% | 45.8 | -5.51 |
| Southampton | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.8% | 44.34 | 97.39 |
| Crystal Palace | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.7% | 43.17 | -10.29 |
| Brighton & Hove Albion | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8.6% | 41.4 | -22.97 |
| Newcastle United | 0.0% | 0.0% | 28.5% | 36.38 | -116.53 |
| Burnley | 0.0% | 0.0% | 44.1% | 33.92 | -27.36 |
| Fulham | 0.0% | 0.0% | 53.7% | 32.28 | -28.04 |
| Huddersfield Town | 0.0% | 0.0% | 62.1% | 30.89 | -25.06 |
| Cardiff City | 0.0% | 0.0% | 74.2% | 28.87 | -28.77 |
This table shows the chances of a team’s finishing the season in each of the 20 places in the table:
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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:
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Arsenal and Manchester United fell back a bit from the other top six teams. The middle is still a big shrug emoji while there is a bit of separation forming at the bottom of the table.
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.