Syzygy Analytics

Today I am recording some points projections for 7 different leagues using up to 4 different methods.  All 7 leagues are around 30% complete so let’s see at the end of the season which method predicts the remaining 70% the best! 

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The 4 different rating systems I am using are as follows:

My ratings

Developed by me over the last 10 years these ratings are purely using on pitch actions (passes/shots/goals) from this season.  I don’t think the 10-15 game samples for all the leagues I am looking at today are sufficient to put full stock in what they say (for example a regression to last season’s performances would add some value) but they are still very useful for comparison.

MIR (Market implied odds)

A market implied/inferred odds algorithm I created recently using betting odds to calculate the performance level of each team.  I’m using the closing odds (odds at kick-off) for each team for their last 4 or 5 matches with an additional factor of their performance level in their latest match (as the betting odds can not have included this yet).

Opta

Opta points projections from https://theanalyst.com.  I think their projections use a broader elo based system so I don’t expect their projections to keep up with the predictive performance of other systems in this specific situation.

Spreadex

I’m using the mid-point of points spreads for each team at this spread betting website.  They don’t have any spreads for a few of the leagues in this article.

Let’s get started!

Points Projections

Leeds look plenty strong enough to survive although you must wonder if their shooting data is better than their real level and the Opta and Spreadex predictions end up the more accurate ones.  Sunderland are still rated fairly poorly despite performances. 

My ratings are pretty close to the MIR.  PSG I have rated as a bit lower but they have not been dominating all their games but their lineups are fairly inconsistent, and they are potentially such a dominant team you wonder if they are slightly cruising at times.  Additionally they could deserve a boost for their performance levels last season so all in all I am not confident about their final tally being closer to 75 than 80.

Injuries and lineups are a complicating factor across all leagues.  For my ratings I could ideally have included factor that compares predicted future lineup strength to the lineup strength each team has had for the season so far (I don’t have that player level analysis quite ready to go yet).  I have quite a few teams performing differently so far to market opinion here.

Although billed by many as one of the most competitive leagues around Europe Inter really look like the team everyone is trying to catch.  Napoli are unlikely to repeat last season’s success.  Fiorentina have looked really poor on the pitch so let’s see if they can recover.

I rate Hoffenheim’s performances strongly so far, let’s see if they can keep it up.

Opta are showing 29.0 pts for Sheffield Wednesday which I think includes their 12pt deduction (normally the Opta predictions have a smaller difference between the top and bottom team).  The other projections ignore this deduction so I’ve removed the deduction from the Opta projection.  Ipswich have good underlying numbers so I think could be well place to get promoted back to the Premier League.

Quite a few differences of opinion in League 1 here.  I don’t rate Luton’s or Bolton’s performances so far nearly as high as the general opinion of these teams.  Blackpool have struggled and are being slow to improve.  This will be an interesting prediction to look back on at the end of the season.

I’m not seeing title contending level performances from Chesterfield?  Barnet haven’t been getting results so far, but they should be considered as one of the favourites for the title. 

Interesting angles for analysis at season’s end

• Which projections predicted the future performance of each team the best?
• Combining my rating and the market implied rating could create a more accurate prediction – what weighting for each would have maximised the predictive ability here?
• At The TransferFlow Justin Worrall/Ted Knutson (https://www.thetransferflow.com/p/outrights-longshot-bias) wrote an interesting piece on favourites being overvalued by models.  My current grasp of this is, as performance levels for teams can wander in both directions through the season, on average this hurts the favourites’ chances more than it will help (the chances of the favourites is hurt more by their performance dropping than it is by their performance improving.  They don’t need it to improve to have a strong chance of winning the league).  Can we see evidence of this across these projections how can we adjust for it in the future? 

With thanks to

Joseph Buchdahl and https://www.football-data.co.uk/ for betting odds, Opta and Spreadex for their projections and Whoscored for passing/shooting data.