Premier League New Season Preview 2021/22
This week we have a preview of the Premier League and at the of that a preview of the weekend’s games.
So, who do Scorecasting Economists predict to win the Premier League this season?
We have two tables below, the first table shows as a heatmap, which teams are most likely to win the league, finish in the top 4 (Champions League spots) or get relegated. The redder it is the more likely it is to happen.
The second table shows how likely each team is to finish in each exact league position.
Quite reasonably both tables put Man City as the most likely to win (after all they won it last season). They, along with the others we predict to finish in the top 4, have no chance of being relegated.
![](https://blogs.reading.ac.uk/econscorecast/files/2021/08/table-1.jpg)
Outside of the likely top 4 the next likely contenders are Arsenal, Tottenham and Leicester. Everton for instance have less than a 5% chance of getting into the top 4. None of these teams have much chance of getting relegated.
At the other end of the table, sadly, the newly promoted teams are currently the most likely to also be relegated.
Norwich have a 44.2% chance of this happening. Away from that, both Brighton and Burnley are between 32 & 33% to go down. Even the teams we have listed 12th and 13th (Southampton and Aston Villa) have a 17% chance of being relegated but less than 1% of the Champions League. In the next section though, when we look at the exact positions, we can see that Norwich also have a reasonable enough chance of finishing outside of relegation.
Where exactly do we think teams will finish?
In the table below, as per above Man City are 73.4% to finish top but there are some other interesting aspects. Liverpool are 30% to finish second. Chelsea 25% to finish 3rd for instance.
Everton, West Ham, Wolves and Leeds all have between 12.7 to 6.4% chance of finishing 7th and thus getting into Europe next season. One of those (West Ham) is already in Europe this season so the extra matches this year may actually reduce that chance as the season goes on.
![](https://blogs.reading.ac.uk/econscorecast/files/2021/08/table-2.jpg)
At the other end of the table, in terms of exact likely positions, it gets quite close once we get to the last 8 teams or so.
Even Norwich have a 5& chance of finishing 12th, and Crystal Palace have a 6.1% chance of finishing 11th.
Norwich also have an 18.7% chance (the highest) of finishing dead last though. Newcastle for instance have a 10% chance of finishing 18th place but only a 7% chance of finishing last or even 11th. So in essence the exact positions at the lower end of the table are much harder to predict this year.
WEEK ONE Preview
Newly promoted Brentford start the new season at home to Arsenal and because it’s Arsenal, the model favours Brentford (actually it’s not because it’s Arsenal but, Brentford’s ELO rating is pretty decent due to the amount of matches they won towards the end of last season and home advantage is factored into our model).
Our model has Brentford at 41% to win with Arsenal on just 32.4%. It also predicts a 1-1 draw as the most likely score.
Our model has actually predicted a 1-1 draw as the most likely score for every match this week although it is unlikely you will see the same thing in future weeks as we base it on more recent results (see Score Picks).
![](https://blogs.reading.ac.uk/econscorecast/files/2021/08/Prem-Weekend-1.jpeg)
If you look at the section to the centre-right called, ‘Draws’ you can see that a 1-1 draw is between 11.2% likely (Tottenham v Man City) to 12.7% (Everton v Southampton).
This week our predicted outcomes vary quite wildly from bookmakers mean odds. For instance they have Chelsea at over 75% to win against Crystal Palace and Liverpool winning away to Norwich (Liverpool are at over 72% with Norwich on just 11% to win).
One of the biggest matches taking place is Tottenham v Man City. Tottenham finished the season quite poorly and have a new manager. Harry Kane is officially still a Man City player at the time I’m typing this, so if he starts our 1-1 draw and the model favouring Tottenham’ are not actually totally unrealistic. Bookmakers disagree an have City on nearly 60% to win. Our model has home advantage factored in though which gives Tottenham’s chances a boost.
The other match where I suspect our model may turn out to be more accurate than bookmakers is Man Utd v Leeds. With Man Utd missing Cavani, I think will hinder them and Leeds will prove difficult opponents. Our model favours Man Utd slightly 40%- 34.5% but bookmakers have them at 62% to win.