The Matchday Digest: Gameweek 20

Welcome to The Matchday Diget, here is everything you need for Gameweek 20

Manchester City have the highest projected goals in their home tie with West Ham at 2.79 and the highest chance at a clean sheet at 46.9%.

One of the closest games of the gameweek seems to be Bournemouth vs Everton with the projected goals being 1.23 to 1.30. Bournemouth is the 3rd best team in the league for xG with 37.4 and Everton is coming off 3 clean sheets in their last 5 games.

The closest however looks to be Wolves vs Forest, which are tied on 1.47 expected goals each and with the clean sheet edge slightly in favour of Wolves, but Forest have been the 3rd best defensive team in the league this season, conceding just 19 goals.

Liverpool now have a firm grasp on the Premier League title with them winning the league in 89.5% of 10,000 simulations with Arsenal second favourite way back on just 10%. Crazy to think to start the season that Manchester City started on around 80% chance of once again winning the league and now sit on just 0.4%…

Any more points dropped for the chasers will only further increase Liverpools certinaty.

Southampton is almost certainly doomed with my model running the season and having them relegated in 99.9% of 10,000 seasons. Elsewhere both Ipswich Town and Leicester City still have much work to do. Ipwhichs win vs Chelsea in gameweek 19 was a good start before that game they sat at a 91.3% chance of going down.

And yes in case you were wondering Manchester United is now relegated in 0.5% of 10,000 simulations each time finishing in 18th place.

Looking ahead

Fulham has the current easiest run over the next 6 gameweeks playing Ipswich and Leicester City in their next 3 games, this means they have an average fixture difficulty rating of 76.6. In contrast, Wolves have the most difficult run over the next 6 games currently which could make their relegation fight that much harder, playing all 5 of the league’s current top 5.

As you would expect Liverpool would be expected on current form to score the most goals over the next 6 week period and Arsenal to keep the most clean sheets. Nottingham Forest should fly up the expected clean sheet table after their trip to Liverpool in Gameweek 21.

Manchester United Case Study

Manchester United now has just a 3.9% chance of avoiding their lowest Premier League finish ever.

Manchester United finished the 2023/24 season in 8th place under Erik ten Hag, their worst-ever Premier League finish. Just seven months later, they now have a 3.9% chance of finishing inside the top 8 in the Premier League, almost certainly having their worst Premier League finish and worst top-flight finish since at least 1989/90, when they ended 13th.

The data comes from my Premier League model, which simulates the remaining games 10,000 times and records how often teams finish where the number of points scored, and more.

Manchester United's average points total after 10,000 simulations is just 46.1 (1.21 PpG). This would have put them up their worst points tally since the 1977/78 season when they had 42 points in 42 games. However, this was when the Leagues in England still used 2 points for a Win instead of the 3 we have today, so converting this season to today's points, they would have finished on 58 points after having 16 wins and 10 draws.

Therefore Manchester United is on track for their worst season since their 1973/74 campaign, where they had 10 wins, 12 draws and 20 losses with a modern point total of 42. This was the season United were relegated from the first division, finishing in 21st position.

In my model, Manchester United finishes inside the bottom 3 in 50 of the 10,000 simulations (0.05%), finishing in 18th place on each of these occasions. Surely it can't keep getting worse for United, can it?