Welcome to The Matchday Digest!

Gameweek 16 Preview and Projections

Title Race

How things can change in one week of football. Arsenal dropped from a commanding position being 5 points clear to now just 2 points clear, which saw their title chance drop from 71.6% to 58.7% likely. OPTA still have them at 71.9% likely with just a 2-point gap…

Are Aston Villa in the title race picture now? They are currently winning 8.8% of 10,000 Premier League simulations…

Relegation Battle

In terms of the relegation battle, it is starting more and more to look like it will be both Burnley and Wolves relegated at the end of the season. So with just one other team to join them the model currently thinks this will be West Ham (40.9%), but it’s very close to the next most likely Leeds United (37.9%).

And yes, there is currently a 1 in 10,000 chance for Liverpool to be relegated with the model recording one simulation which sees them relegated in 18th position.

Matrix & Average Table

Liverpool is still just about predicted to finish inside the top 4. With their average position being 5.8th and them on average being just 1 point in front of 5th placed Crystal Palace.

My model still rates Liverpool highly as the long-term average of Liverpool is still quite high, and teams which are higher rated have a more likely chance of returning to their form. If Liverpool are to sell Salah in January, it would be interesting to see if that’s the turnaround they needed or just something to continue their downward spiral. Either way, we will be able to show the impact.

How does the Fusion-Sim 2.0 Model see Gameweek 15?

Wolves have just a 6.5% chance to beat Arsenal on Saturday, with Arsenal winning 80.9% of the 10,000 simulations of the game and scoring on average 3.04 goals.

For me, Burnley vs Fulham is one of the most interesting games of the weekend. A loss for Burnley would make their relegation chances well north of 80%, but a loss for Fulham would see them right in the mix of a relegation battle and give Burnley the boost they need to fight to stay in the Premier League.

And finally, just for Manchester United fans, check out Back to Carrington below!

Match Reviews and Form & Trends all stat-based too

That’s all for this week, thanks for reading!

— Aaron.