Can Chelsea be caught?


Chelsea are 6 points clear and in blistering form after scoring 3 against Tottenham.  But is 6 points after 14 games enough?  History would say no.  With only 9 teams that were top after 14 in the last 22 seasons actually finishing up top when all is said and done.  Just look at last year.  Man City were 6 points behind similar to right now, but only 3rd.  Last season they had both Chelsea and Arsenal to catch, and they did, with points to spare.  Of course this year could be like one of those 9 out of 22 seasons that did end up with top going on to be champions.

 Anyone following me on twitter will have seen my weekly updates and league tables from the archives to show that its not quite over yet.

 It begs the question, when is the table indicative of the final table?

 So I cross checked the tables after 15 rounds, 16 rounds, at Christmas etc against the final table.  And 9 out of the 22 seasons, or 10 out of the 22 seasons the toppers went on to be the champions.  Always a minority.

 You have to wait to 22 rounds before the tide turns in the toppers favour.  After 22 rounds the team at top went on to be champion 12 times!  So there are at least 8 more matches to play before Chelsea can truly believe that they have more than a 50-50 chance of winning.  And even at 22 rounds I see Man Utd 7 points clear in 97/98, Newcastle 7 points clear in 95/96 and Arsenal 5 points clear in 02/03 all finished 2nd.  Even as recent as last season Arsenal were still top after 22 games and finished as low as 4th!
12 teams top after 22 matches won outright, 10 teams top after 22 matches slipped up.  
22 matcehs is the turning points where more teams go on to win than go on to slip up.
Before we write off the rest of the league, lets see how the table looks after 22.


Follow me on twitter @FoG_BLoG, or on facebook /fog2014.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Deconstructing WDL and O/U 2.5 goals odds.

Input odds below (in decimal): Home Odds: Draw Odds: Away odds: Over 2.5 Odds: Calculate Params See also Elo Reverse Calculator . Dixon Coles Dixon Coles is a method of generating probabilities on football matches.  It is related to Poisson but adds a correlation for low scores.  It seems to be one of the most accurate public methods.  It requires three parameters lambda, mu and rho.  rho describes how related low scores are.  lambda and mu represent the average goals the home and away team are expected to score. In this calculator I have fixed rho = -0.13 (more info here  and here ) and I simply do a brute force search varying lambda and mu to find the values that has the lowest error from the Win Draw Lose and Over 2.5 odds entered.  I use the WDL odds and Over/Under odds as they are the most liquid betting markets and you can usually read a very accurate estimate for these off oddschecker or the exchange.   The soluti...
Read more

Chrome Extension 1000

Image
Donations now accepted If you have enjoyed using this extension and want to show your appreciation then click "Buy me a coffee" below, otherwise continue further down to read about our features! This started off as just a personal project.  I got full value from the effort that I put in already.   The effort included a few days coding initially and a day or two here or there to fix and add features, perhaps a full working week but fragmented all over the place.  In total it is now about 150 lines of code.   The reward was learning some javascript, learning about chrome extensions, earning some cred on twitter, and getting to connect with different people.  And of course I am actively using it and can identify potential betting opportunities myself. However surprisingly many have found it useful and some have asked for a way to say thanks.  So here it is. Feature Request (01 February 2024) - only available to manually install due to gambling exetn...
Read more

Elo Reverse Calculator

Image
Input odds below (in decimal): Home Odds: Draw Odds: Away odds: Calculate Params Elo Elo is simply a way of rating teams.  The ratings can be used to compare teams and generate probabilities for head to heads.  The probability one team will beat another is just a function of the difference in their rating. p = 1/(1+10^(-diff/400))  The tweet further below from ClubElo introduces another parameter r to take account of draws. Elo: The Hard Way The process is better described on eloratings.net  and clubelo.com .  If you visit these sites you can see it is quite complex.  Basically you initialise all teams to 1000 points for example.  Then you need a history of results and update each teams ratings depending if they win, lose or draw.  There are nuances to worry about, home field advantage, big wins, inter-league adjustments, k-factor weightings, etc. Elo: The Easy Way Say someone has already rated the teams, and also they have tak...
Read more