Premier League 27 11 21

Arsenal v Newcastle United

Our table below doesn’t yet include the 3 UEFA League/Conference teams as we update based on immediate past results and haven’t collected these yet (*updated model now shows below the original one*)

Today, Arsenal play Newcastle after a 4-0 defeat against Liverpool last weekend. Newcastle on the other hand have Eddie Howe as their new manager after a negative Covid test (he was technically manager last weekend but was unable to attend due to testing positive at the time). It doesn’t look good for Newcastle, as Arsenal have most of their squad fit.

Arsenal are 5th, Newcastle are currently in last place and our likely winners are Arsenal at 63.7% (see table below in Outcome Probs). Bookmakers Mean Odds are only 1.5% higher, so it looks pretty likely for an Arsenal win. A 2-0 exact score is 11.2% likely with a 1-0 11.1% likely. Personally I’ll be quite surprised if Arsenal don’t win this.

Most likely score: 2-0 – amusingly, the BBC also have Lawro predicting the same thing

(*I actually watched this and I think Arsenal could have had more but everyone got the 2-0 right).

Chelsea v Manchester United

This match takes on greater significance now Man Utd have sacked Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and almost finished appointing Ralf Rangnick (he is ‘set to be appointed’ at the moment) .

It doesn’t exactly improve Man Utd’s chances though – again our model and bookmakers mean odds have just 1.5% between them in terms of picking the likely winners. Chelsea (between 61.5-59.9%). Both teams won in the Champions League in midweek but Man Utd were slow to get going against Villareal, I thought.

Most likely score: 1-0

Elsewhere the model’s likely winners odds are also pretty close to bookmakers mean odds, except for Brentford v Everton where we have the two teams closer (between 3% on likely winners). Bookmakers favour Brentford at 42.5% though.