5 Highest Quality Chances from Premier League Week 2

I really liked how this turned out last week so I am going to go through this again.

These are the top 5 highest quality chances produced in the Premier League this week with the inputs that went into them and the xG for each chance.

5. Richarlison vs Bournemouth

0.60 xG: Shot from feet, from very close range, from open play, classified as a big chance.

Not all high quality shots are pretty, this helps prove it.

4. Ben Mee vs West Brom

0.61 xG, Shot from head, from very close range, from a corner, assisted with a cross, classified as a big chance.

Headers are hard part 1.

3. Phil Jones vs Swansea City

0.65 xG: Shot from head, from very close range, from a set piece situation, assisted with a cross, classified as a big chance.

A beautiful delivery from Juan Mata on this free kick. Headers are hard part 2.

2. Joel Matip vs Crystal Palace

0.65 xG: Shot from head, from very close range, from a set piece situation, assisted with a cross, classified as a big chance.

Headers are hard part 3.

1. Eric Bailly vs Swansea City

0.79 xG: Shot from feet, from very close range, from a corner, classified as a big chance. 

This is probably underestimating the chance quality because just getting his foot to the shot pretty much means that this is a goal. For those curious Paul Pogba's free header that was saved was a 0.25 xG shot.

5 Highest Quality Chances from Premier League Week 1

*Note I am not sure if this will be a reoccurring item or not but I thought I would at least give it a shot for week 1 and see if I like how it turns out.*

These are the top 5 highest quality chances produced in the Premier League this week with the inputs that went into them and the xG for each chance.

5. Mohamed Salah vs Watford

0.6 xG: Shot from feet, from very close range, classified as a big chance.

That pass by Roberto Firmino really makes this goal. Holly crap that was nice. 

4. Shinji Okazaki vs Arsenal

0.61 xG: Shot from head, from very close range, from a corner, assisted by a headed pass, classified as a big chance.

That's some poor goal keeping.

3. Stefano Okaka vs Liverpool

0.61 xG: Shot from head, from very close range, from a corner, assisted from a cross, classified as a big chance.

2. Miguel Britos vs Liverpool

0.61 xG: Shot from head, from very close range, from a corner, regular assist, classified as a big chance. *Also offside

1. Romelu Lukaku vs West Ham

0.82 xG: Shot from foot, from the center of the box, following a fast break, assisted with a through ball, classified as a big chance.

Marcus Rashford did most of the hard work for this goal with his run and beautiful through ball.

Premier League Table Simulation

After Arsenal's win over Southampton yesterday there are still four teams fighting for the last two Champions League spots.

Manchester City and Liverpool are still the clear favorites but Arsenal have edged past Manchester United as the closet follower.

To have a realistic shot Arsenal need to get to a minimum of 73 points and from there it could get pretty interesting with the goal differential between the teams. If Arsenal do win out and get to 75 points they will beat Liverpool's points totals about 70% of the time. If the get to 73 points they will finish ahead of Liverpool 19% of the time.

The road ahead for Arsenal:

41.7% chance of a win at Stoke.

55.9% chance of a win vs Sunderland.

44% chance of beating Everton at home on the last day.

All told there is about a 10.3% chance of running the table which is crazy considering where Arsenal were a few weeks ago.

Premier League Season Simulation

I am not one to write code.

I work with people who do that and keep the hell away from that because I will break things. Given that I decided to write some very bad VBA code that simulates the rest of the Premier League Season.

It is based on the other simulations I have run and posted here and like those it is untested for accuracy.

Here is what I got for the rest of the season:

Click to make bigger

According to my model the title is all but decided for Chelsea after Tottenham lost on Firday. Even with Arsenal winning Sunday they are still way outside the top four spots.

Man City is in the best spot for top four at 91%, Liverpool is next at 65% followed by Manchester United at 59%.

Celta Vigo vs Manchester United First Leg Simulation

I haven't watched any Celta Vigo this year but from what I have heard on the podcasts and read is that they have thrown in the towel on the league season and accepted a safe mid-table position and thrown everything into the Europa League.

This simulation is based only on league stats so it might underrate Celta Vigo's chances if they have been resting players in the league and not given it their best shot. 

Manchester United are pretty heavy favorites for this one and at the very least should expect to come away with an away goal (86% chance of at least one goal and 53% chance of more than 1) if not the win. 

The Projection:

Premier League Top 6 Stats vs the Top 6

One of the things that has become apparent this season is that the top 6 (really top 5 but I will be nice and include Arsenal in this discussion) teams are significantly better than the rest of the league this year and the results against each other have been what is driving the places in the table.

Given that, I thought that it would be interesting to pull the stats from the database I have been working on all season and compare how the teams have fared against each other:

Offense vs other Top 6 Teams
	xG		SoT xG		Big Chances		Danger Zone		Shots
Team	Per Game	Rank	Per Game	Rank	Per Game	Rank	Per Game	Rank	Per Game	Rank
Chelsea	1.10	3	1.16	3	1.45	3	3.73	7	9.00	7
Tottenham Hotspur	1.02	4	0.90	10	1.22	5	3.11	13	10.78	4
Liverpool	1.26	2	1.48	1	1.60	2	5.40	2	12.10	2
Manchester City	1.52	1	1.24	2	2.18	1	5.45	1	13.36	1
Manchester United	0.86	7	0.82	9	0.86	11	4.14	4	11.57	3
Arsenal	0.83	8	1.12	12	1.00	6	3.78	6	9.33	6
Defense vs other Top 6 Teams
	xG		SoT xG		Big Chances		Danger Zone		Shots
Team	Per Game	Rank	Per Game	Rank	Per Game	Rank	Per Game	Rank	Per Game	Rank
Chelsea	0.79	3	0.75	2	0.88	3	3.03	1	8.61	3
Tottenham Hotspur	0.86	4	0.90	4	0.94	5	3.56	5	8.88	4
Liverpool	0.95	5	1.07	8	1.31	9	3.37	4	8.00	1
Manchester City	0.75	2	0.82	3	0.79	2	3.03	1	8.09	2
Manchester United	0.73	1	0.71	1	0.65	1	3.18	3	9.06	5
Arsenal	1.11	8	1.17	9	1.33	10	4.64	8	10.91	6

I was a little surprised but based on the stats Manchester City have the best record thus far against the other big teams. Chelsea have been second best followed very closely by Liverpool.

Manchester United are the fourth best team, with a very good defense against the the big teams (I would rank them second behind City) but that has come at the expense of producing offense or watchable matches.

A bit surprisingly Tottenham are the fifth best team, their defense is good and not far off the other teams but on offense I still think that they are way over performing their stats. Maybe they really are an awesome long range shooting team and that they can turn high volume of low quality chances into goals and wins on a regular basis I just think that betting on it to continue next season would be a risky proposition.

Lastly is poor old Arsenal. They don't have a stat where they rank better than sixth at against the top teams. They are the worst team on offense and the worst team in defense. There really isn't anything else that can be said about this.