Premier League 2nd March 2021, Midweek
Liverpool v Chelsea
This is a pretty intriguing game as Liverpool’s defence continues to struggle and will face what is now a better organised Chelsea team.
Our model favours Liverpool, who are actually one place lower than Chelsea but our model takes into account teams ELO rating, so with Liverpool being 2 ELO places ahead of Chelsea among the English teams and 7 across Europe the outcomes showing in our model make more sense (47% Liverpool win v 25% Chelsea).
Unsurprisingly given the longer period of success in Liverpool’s history the record between the teams favours Liverpool. Liverpool have won 82 times to Chelsea’s 64. The last time Chelsea beat Liverpool in the league was nearly 3 years ago.
Liverpool also won their last match (despite losing the last 4) and although it was against Sheffield United who looked almost relegated, Chelsea also have drawn their last 2 matches.
Most likely score from our model: 1-0
Burnley v Leicester
I strongly suspect there are going to be academic studies into how it appears that players are picking up more injuries, across this particular season. Considering a large amount of the same players are expecting to play in Euro 2021, I wonder what state squads will be in for the start of next season as well?
Teams outside the top 6 don’t really have the squads to play the same first team in 3 games in ten days but are having to with the increase in mid-week games. Leicester are now out of the UEFA League but it looks like it has already taken it’s toll on their players with the amount of injuries they’ve had. This gives Burnley a chance tomorrow night I think.
Caution should be applied though, Leicester have only lost won game after a good run but whilst Burnley may not be winning that many games they are grinding out the points or were until Tottenham finally got their attack to work at the weekend. Bookmakers are slightly clearer out the outcome than our model, giving Leicester a 47% chance to win.
Most likely score: 1:1
Elsewhere in the league, our model continues to under-score Everton, where it actually favours West Brom, who despite having the worst defensive record in the league still show as slight favourites. Bookmakers overwhelmingly favour Everton though at 51.3% to 22.5% for West Brom.
Sheffield Utd v Aston Villa is another match where our model has undermarked a team and in this case it’s Villa. Our model slightly favours Sheffield United who are all but relegated. Bookmakers correct this by favouring Villa at 45%.
