Syzygy Analytics

In this article I am going to share my projections for the Premier League season and compare them to the projections of other popular sites.  We can check back at the end of the season to compare how each projection performed!

Figure 1

• Opta’s projections are here: https://theanalyst.com/competition/premier-league/table
• Spreadex’s can be found on their website, spreadex.com
• Elevenify can be found on x at https://x.com/elevenify
• For the comparisons on the right, green = I’m projecting a higher points total, red = I’m projecting worse.
• My ratings are a complex team performance rating based on shots/goals/passes/take-ons for the 4 games we’ve had so far and regressed to a prior.   The prior is stronger for teams like Aston Villa (they have a similar line up to last season, so their poor performances have been quite heavily regressed) than promoted teams (a lot of new players and/or the unknown of playing in a new league).

Notable teams

Fulham and Leeds stand out as my 2 favoured teams.  I rate Fulham as a really solid team (just slightly above league average) and did through all last season as well.  I’m not sure why I have this slightly controversial view, maybe individually their players don’t rate highly or raw xG numbers over-rate them…

I rate Leeds right around league average after 4 games (the Arsenal performance was disappointing but their other 3 games have been extremely solid) and I can’t justify a strong negative prior based on their performances last season.  You can be sure I will be investing heavily in Leeds and Fulham in the long-term betting markets.

Opta and Elevenify are not optimistic about Manchester United’s hopes while Spreadex and I think they can post a respectable total.  I rated them a shade above league average last year which I think will be their ‘floor’ this year for a few reasons (new signings, no Europe e.t.c). 

On the other side of thing I am very low on Burnley’s performances thus far.  I’m not sure what Opta see in them (they have been rated well by Opta since before the start of the season.)  I think there are probably worse investments in the world than the 40%+ ROI available on Burnley getting relegated (very risky though!).  I am backing rock bottom at an implied chance of almost 33% as well.

I have been a low on Chelsea since last season while I’m less confident in being relatively down on Manchester City.  This means I have the league as more of a 2-horse race than others.

Please subscribe (top left) if you want to be notified about future posts!  I’m planning an analytical piece about some revised game state adjustments and much more.