Premier League January 1st

Happy New Year!

Looks like a pretty close set of games for the New Year’s matches. No teams reach 2 on expected goals which has rarely happened in this league, this season.

Our scorecast model is very close this week to bookmakers in terms of how likely teams are to win (or lose).

Man Utd V Aston Villa

Nearly every week this season at least one team has been rated above 2 on expected goals.

This week the closest are Man Utd with 1.93 against Aston Villa. Both teams have won 3 and drawn 2 of their last 5 matches and whilst Aston Villa have scored 3 less than Utd, they have also let in 9 fewer goals. 

The 13.1% chance of a win for Villa in our model and 21.9% mean odds with bookmakers suggests Villa won’t do well but Man Utd’s defence has not looked good for a while so I think they will struggle against such a well organised side that is also in form. There is a 13.6% chance for a Utd 1-0 win and a 13.2% chance for a 2-0 win.

Chelsea v Man City

Chelsea v Man City looks close enough (we have a 1-1 draw predicted as the most likely result) but our model has very close ratings for both teams when compared to bookmakers – we have Chelsea at 29% to win, bookmakers only .3% higher. We have Man City to win at 43.2%, they have them 1.1% higher.

Tottenham v Leeds

Our model and bookmakers clearly agree on favouring Tottenham over Leeds (55.6% Tottenham win in our model, and 55.2% Tottenham, bookmakers mean odds).

The real question may be, can the slightly more defensive Tottenham handle the more attack minded Leeds?

Tactically this is probably the most interesting match of the weekend. Our model predicts a 1-1 draw as the most likely outcome and that actually feels like it might be about right.

Brighton v Wolves

The only match where there is a significant difference in terms of outcomes between our model and bookmakers this week is Brighton v Wolves. Our model favours Wolves (37.2%), whereas bookmakers favour Brighton (38.1%).  only 0.05% between the two teams on expected goals too. The most likely outcomes in our model are a draw.