Mourinho returns to Chelsea tomorrow with his reputation beleaguered. He is no doubt a great manager, and one of the Premier League era’s greats. But does the generally compact and cautious style of football he demands from his players really stand a chance against the explosiveness of Klopp and Guardiola, in a league where the degree of competitive balance is generally shrinking year-on-year. For what it’s worth, the Model forecasts a 1-0 win to Chelsea against Utd.
When the Model sees Southampton it goes a little bit haywire. All complex statistical models have a little personality, and the odd bug or several, and we think Southampton brings the worst/best out in the Scorecasting Model. This week the Model forecasts a scoreline of 4-3 in the match between Bournemouth and Southampton. Despite this being the most likely scoreline consistent with the most likely result (a win to Bournemouth), that scoreline overall has just a 2% chance of actually occurring according to the Model. Hmm…
The rest of our Premier League forecasts are in the the table below:

  • The Forecast scoreline, with the % chance of that happening
  • The % chance of a win by the Home team, P(H), or Away team, P(A) (with one hundred minus those two numbers giving the % chance of a draw
Forecast Win (%)
Score Pr (%) P(H) P(A)
Arsenal Leicester 1-0 6 54 21
Bournemouth Southampton 4-3 2 48 25
Cardiff Fulham 0-0 18 34 37
Chelsea Manchester Utd 1-0 35 53 21
Everton Crystal Palace 1-0 13 46 26
Huddersfield Liverpool 0-2 25 23 50
Manchester City Burnley 2-0 27 64 14
Newcastle Brighton 1-0 21 42 29
West Ham Spurs 0-1 24 28 44
Wolves Watford 1-0 6 45 27