North London Derby Simulation

I have been playing around with a simulation tool* and thought that it would be fun to run this weekend's North London Derby through the model and see what the results look like.

Unsurprisingly Tottenham are the favorites in this match but maybe not by as much as I would have expected given the form of both teams and their place in the table.

The biggest factor is that Tottenham are really over performing their underlying stats this season and I have built the simulation based on those underlying stats. 

On the goals scored front, you should expect them in this match, with a 0-0 draw showing up in just 5% of simulations. The most common scoreline is a 1-1 draw that wouldn't really help either team accomplish their season goals so if it that is the scoreline toward the end I expect both teams would throw everything looking for a second.

*This model has not been tested at all for accuracy on past matches. It uses this seasons stats (for and allowed) for danger zone shots, wide box shots, and shots outside the box, along with the number of these that might be headers and big chances. It then takes this data and uses a randomizer (because soccer is crazy Y'all) to produce the number and mix of shots for each team for each of the simulations. The simulation then uses a random number to simulate if a goal is scored or not for each shot. The simulation is run 10,000 times.