The Athletic
5 years ago
Monday, November 23, 2009
Premier League Rankings Update
Tottenham threw a nice wrench into things with a 9-goal win. That's unusual enough that I suspect my models will overrate Spurs by a bit for the rest of the year. That will be reduced over time as the total number of matches goes up but I don't think it will go away entirely. After getting just a draw, Liverpool have just about completely left the title race. I thought the big four would all be in it 6 weeks from now so I'll just call that prediction dead. With Arsenal hosting Chelsea this weekend, it could go anywhere from a wide-open three-club race to Chelsea in great position well clear.
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While you mentioned that Spurs are overrated, I believed the model does a slight injustice to Wigan as well. Personally, I feel that Portsmouth, Hull and Wolves are the weakest teams right now.
ReplyDeleteRelf
That's a good point. If Tottenham are overrated by virtue of their quite unusual 9-1 win then Wigan are surely underrated for being on the other side. Right now they are the worst team in the league in goal differential, 2 goals behind Hull and 3 behind Wolves. If you give them even a 5-1 loss instead of 9-1 then they'd be ahead of those two just looking at goal differential.
ReplyDeleteAs for Portsmouth, I don't think they are in the bottom 3 despite being last in the table. As I've argued before, I think goal differential is a better indicator of team strength than points and they are 6th from the bottom in goal differential, 5 goals ahead of Wolves. I haven't seen them play so I don't know if they have been lucky to not give up more goals and teams have missed a lot of great chances against them or something along those lines but I wouldn't put them in the bottom three.
You have a point there, but that's just my personal opinion. :)
ReplyDeleteRelf
Well they aren't far off if they are and certainly have a lot of time to prove you right.
ReplyDelete