Premier League 18/12/21

When I started writing this, there were two games still scheduled.

However, Aston Villa v Burnley has just been called off. Seems fairly clear to me that if more than half the games are being called off (and it’s still possible more will) that it is probably going to be sensible to postpone matches until after Christmas at least.

Leeds v Arsenal is apparently still on, however (at 5.30pm), and if it remains that way it looks pretty favourable to Arsenal. Arsenal are fourth with Leeds 16th and in Leeds are in pretty poor form. Our model predicts a 1-1 draw as the most likely score with that exact score being 12.3% likely (a 0-1 Arsenal win is 11.2%, as the next most likely score).

On the other hand, our model favours Arsenal by a margin of around 18% (46.2%) over Leeds winning. When compared to bookmaker mean odds they favour Arsenal even more, showing them on 50% likely to win. Leeds are hovering around 25-28% so not much difference between our model and bookmakers.

If there are any games taking place tomorrow in each of them, Newcastle v Man City, Tottenham – Liverpool or Wolves v Chelsea we seem to be underestimating the likely winners by between 13-11.5%, with all the away teams heavily favoured and with bookmakers mean odds at over 60% for each and over 80% for Man City.

We do however have Liverpool and Chelsea, likely to draw (or at least that, that is the most likely score for those games).