Premier League Midweek, last week of January
This midweek set of scorecasts doesn’t include the Tottenham v Liverpool, Thursday night match.
The two top of the table Manchester teams both look to have very winnable matches tonight with both teams on at least 2 for expected goals.
Man Utd v Sheffield Utd
Our model has this at 2-0 as the most likely score and Man Utd at 71.6% to win with bookmakers having them slightly higher at over 75%.
West Brom v Man City
Our model also has this game at a 2-0 win for the Manchester team. West Brom are at only 6.5% for a win with bookmakers and only 0.6% higher in our model.
There is a also 12.5% chance for a 2-0 Man City win.
Historically the two teams have been a bit closer than the present day with Man City having won 71 times and West Brom 54 (see link below from 11v11)
https://www.11v11.com/teams/manchester-city/tab/opposingTeams/opposition/West%20Bromwich%20Albion/
Of course it was only last month that the two teams drew 1-1 and even this week Guardiola has apparently called Allardyce a ‘genius’ on the BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55801431
Newcastle v Leeds and Crystal Palace v West Ham
Kicking off in within the hour tonight are Newcastle v Leeds and Crystal Palace v West Ham. Our model favours Newcastle at 40.4% to Leeds 32.4%, whilst bookmakers favour Leeds at 49.8%. Our model predicts a 1-1.
With the Crystal Palace v West Ham game, on the other hand, our model is very close to bookmakers mean odds – 1.5% between our model favouring West Ham at 41.8% and bookmakers at 40.3%.
Again, the model predicts a 1-1 as the most likely outcome.
Elsewhere our model is almost the opposite of bookmakers mean odds for the Burnley v Aston Villa game (our model favours Burnley).
The model doesn’t take into account manager sackings so whether Chelsea will suddenly perform better after sacking Frank Lampard remains to be seen – they are however favourites in our model and with bookmakers.
