Premier League Week 4 Projections

After a long international break it is time to get back to club football. As an Arsenal fan and American it has been a pretty crappy couple of weeks with the results but according to the odds it looks like things should hopefully get better.

Without any further rambling here are the odds for week 4 of the Premier League:

After several weeks with lots of heavy favorites, this week only Arsenal breaks the 50% odds barrier, As a pessimist this also likely means that of the big teams Arsenal will have their result go against them.

The Manchester City vs Liverpool match up looks really good and even with a 4:30 am kick off I will probably still do my best to wake up to watch it. I have City as the favorite but with Liverpool's track record and how they just dominated Arsenal it could definitely be closer than the odds suggest.

A new thing that I tweeted out this week is the relative strength rankings for each team that feeds into these projections.

Something New: Team strength rankings for the Premier League based on the data that feeds into my simulation model. pic.twitter.com/KIIQniLWog

— Scott Willis (@oh_that_crab) September 6, 2017

This week we have a 1 vs 3 match up and a 4 vs 7 match up which might end up as one of the better weekends for top teams going against each other.

On the title projection front, things have narrowed down to a few favorites with the rest of the big teams falling back:

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Manchester City is still the title favorite but Manchester United and Liverpool have both moved to over 20% for the title odds.* Arsenal's season might be collapsing but I still have them as the 4th highest title odds so maybe things aren't as bad as it seems after two losses.

Another new thing I tweeted out today was the team performance compared to the expected points based on odds and based on expected goals:

Expected Points table for the Premier League

Huddersfield Town have really over performed to start the season. pic.twitter.com/iuBR1PrB9x

— Scott Willis (@oh_that_crab) August 30, 2017

This is pretty interesting, I wouldn't expect Huddersfield to keep up this performance but the points that they have already banked are very valuable and can't be take away. Also even with the only perfect record, Manchester United haven't over performed by a crazy amount, Jose might be doing his second year magic.
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This article was written with the aid of StrataData, which is the property of Stratagem Technologies. StrataData powers the StrataBet Sports Trading Platform, in addition to StrataBet Premium Recommendations.

*Note: If teams tie on points this assigns both to that position, I have not added a goal differential to break ties. Here is a further explanation for how these projections work.

5 Highest Quality Chances from Premier League Week 3

A little slow getting this out this week but hey it's an international break and we are all kind of off our regular schedule.

Arsenal fans should probably avoid this week with the amount of shambolic defending that will be featured.

5) Harry Kane vs Burnley

Shot from feet in the center of the box, regular assisted shot, classified as a big chance: 0.40 xG.

Harry Kane just doesn't score in August.

4) Daniel Sturridge vs Arsenal

Shot from head from very close  range, assisted by a cross, classified as a big chance: 0.44 xG

That's about as wide open a header you will get. Sturridge did not miss his chance.

3) Mohamed Salah vs Arsenal

Shot from feet from very close range, following a cross, classified as a big chance: 0.54 xG

This is a really pretty movement from Liverpool to carve open Arsenal, Petr Cech makes a great save to deny a goal. 

2) Dele Alli vs Burnley

Shot from feet from very close range, following a corner, classified as a big chance: 0.76 xG

1) Mohamed Salah vs Arsenal 

Shot from feet from the center of the box, following a fast break, classified as a big chance: 0.77 xG

Not the best corner from Arsenal, a great one man fast break from Salah.

Premier League Week 3 Projections

Week three of the Premier League is here and even though the transfer market is at the forefront with the window closing there are games to be played and projections to be made.

This week there are even more close match ups and just one game with a team expected to win over 50% of the time.

For Arsenal things could really meltdown for the fans with going to Anfield as underdogs. A second loss in a row plus the expected inactivity on the in goings in the transfer market could see things turn absolutely toxic among the fan base.

Lastly here is the latest full season projections:

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The title race has tightened up with Manchester City drawing against Everton last weekend combined with Manchester United's second 4-0 win and Liverpool also winning. Arsenal's loss at Stoke saw them drop from second title favorites to the sweet comfort of 4th.

The race for top 4 is incredibly tight, with ten teams with at least a 10% chance of being a part of that group. Chelsea have seen their odds drop the most since the start of the season going from 46.8% pre-season to 38% this week while Manchester United have improved their odds the most going from 45.9% to 61%.

In the relegation battle, there are seven teams with at least a 15% chance of going down. Newcastle have moved to joint worst odds with Brighton after two losses to start the season. Newcastle has seen their relegation odds increase 23% since the preseason projection going from 32% to 55%. If Newcastle can't get at least a point against West Ham at home the season might be in jeopardy of being over for them.
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This article was written with the aid of StrataData, which is the property of Stratagem Technologies. StrataData powers the StrataBet Sports Trading Platform, in addition to StrataBet Premium Recommendations.

Premier League Week 2 Projections

Week two of the Premier League is here and I have a fresh batch of projections.

This week there are many more close match ups and just a pair of odds where teams would be expected to win over 50% of the time compared to four last week (not including two matches at over 49%). 

The marquee match of Tottenham vs Chelsea shows Spurs as the clear favorites and that doesn't even take into account the players that will be out for Chelsea. It will be interesting if Antonio Conte can pull some magic out of the hat in that match. The midfield that he picks sure will be interesting. 

For Arsenal they are away at Stoke and have pretty favorable odds. My gut would not put things that high up but this week Arsenal should hopefully have more senior players available to play at center back and hopefully Alexis back to at a minimum the bench. I also hope the Oliver Giroud continues as a sub, he is so good at that and really changes the game against tired defenses but really messes with the offensive flow as a starter.

Lastly here is the latest full season projections:

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Manchester City saw their title odds improve 5% after the results of last weekend to be the biggest gainer, while Chelsea lost nearly 4% with their shocking defeat against Burnley. Arsenal have slipped their way into the second highest average points spot but there is such a narrow grouping among the top teams that will probably switch quite a bit as the early season plays out.

In the relegation fight, Burnley were huge movers going from 45% relegation to 30% relegation with a win against the defending Champions with Huddersfield getting a 9% bump with their opening win. Crystal Palace were the big dropper of the week and could be in serious trouble with starting the first two matches with 0 points and real danger lurking with a trip to Anfield.

Also the rest of the big leagues will be kicking off this weekend. For those that follow my stats I want to give an update on my updating schedule. I usually update the Premier League first on Monday morning Pacific Time and then get the rest of Europe as team permits and that some times stretches into the week. I try to get all the stats updated by the time that games kickoff for Fridays but I will try to have it done earlier than that.
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This article was written with the aid of StrataData, which is the property of Stratagem Technologies. StrataData powers the StrataBet Sports Trading Platform, in addition to StrataBet Premium Recommendations.

Premier League Table Simulation- PreSeason

The start of the season is upon us, there is optimism in the air and maybe some dread and anxiety over transfer business not being completed.

With that comes trying to figure out where everyone will finish in the final table. Like many other analysts out there I'll try my hand at projecting the final positions based on a statistical model and simulations. I still have it on my to do list to go more into depth on how explaining my model but here is how I project things to go this year:

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Manchester City are my favorites like most others, with Liverpool the first of the following pack. After those two the teams are all essentially on the same levels. This bunching of talent could make for an actual title race this season which would be a fun change.

After the big six teams you get Southampton and Everton (who the model doesn't rate nearly as high) followed by a whole bunch of meh teams who all could end up in the relegation battle with the newly promoted teams. Somewhat surprisingly Burnley rates as the 2nd worst team with a 42.7% chance of being relegated.

A quick tangent on the projections, like almost all projection models this one moves teams towards the mean and really flattens the spread of points compared to what will really happen. For example here is the table after one simulation instead of running 10,000.

Team	Points	Goal Dif
Tottenham Hotspur	77	31
Arsenal	72	32
Liverpool	71	27
Manchester City	70	26
Southampton	70	24
Chelsea	69	22
Stoke City	55	6
Newcastle United	54	-4
Everton	53	1
Swansea City	53	-2
Manchester United	49	9
Crystal Palace	49	-1
Leicester City	46	-16
Brighton & Hove Albion	45	-20
West Ham United	44	-16
Bournemouth	43	-9
Burnley	38	-26
Watford	35	-31
West Bromwich Albion	34	-26
Huddersfield Town	33	-27

It's quite a bit different and looks a lot more like what you would expect from a season expect for being able to win the league with 77 points. I'd to have loved to see Jose Mourinho's meltdown and subsequent firing after his Manchester United finished in 11th place.

Back to the larger sampling of the simulations here is the Title, Top 4 and Relegation odds for the season:

Here is another way to look at the teams, looking at the spread of outcomes with the box and whisker plot.

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Surprisingly Arsenal have the 3rd highest median points total but they have one of the smallest point spreads among the top 6 teams. I would imagine that this comes from their focus on producing quality shots at the expense of high volume while the other teams all to various extents look to have more shots.

For example, I have Arsenal breaking the 80 point barrier in just 1.5% of simulations compared to 2% for Chelsea, 3% for Tottenham, 3.6% for Liverpool, 10% for Manchester City and 2.5% for Manchester United.

It should be an interesting season and I will do my best to try to run this simulation every week or so to be able to see how things progress as the season goes.
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This article was written with the aid of StrataData, which is the property of Stratagem Technologies. StrataData powers the StrataBet Sports Trading Platform, in addition to StrataBet Premium Recommendations.

Premier League Week 1 Projections

The summer months have flown by, and the Premier League is back again tomorrow. I haven't produced much content over the summer for this hobby site but I have been busy working on some projects that I will roll out through out the season.

The first one is the inclusion of the StrataData to my toolbox. So far I have only had the chance to scratch the surface of what it is capable of and I am excited to dig deeper. The first inclusion of the data is in these here projections. I think the inclusion of the defensive pressure indicators as well as a inclusion of a measure of shot quality (think how well a ball is struck, the movement put on the ball, scuffed shots) will help catch things missed by looking at just shot locations.

Without any further rambling here are my projections for week 1:


The opening week of matches offers quite a few lopsided odds with just the West Brom vs Bournemouth match up relatively close. I think that can be explained pretty easily with no marque match ups between teams that finished close to each other facing off.

For my own viewing plan, I won't miss Arsenal's match Friday afternoon. The 4:30am kickoff between Liverpool and Watford is intriguing just to see how Liverpool do and if Coutinho plays after the link the Barcelona but I'll probably not set the alarm and look at catching the second half.

For the 7am kickoffs I guess Chelsea vs Burnley but that doesn't seem like the greatest contest and I am not sure what NBC will be showing with their new thing of offloading stuff to their over the top pay service with really sucks.

For Sunday there is only choice in both time slots so I guess I will be watching both of those. It will be nice to have my mornings back to be taken over with soccer.
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This article was written with the aid of StrataData, which is the property of Stratagem Technologies. StrataData powers the StrataBet Sports Trading Platform, in addition to StrataBet Premium Recommendations.