LIVERPOOL have a 99.9 per cent chance of winning the Premier League this season, according to a study by Opta.
The Reds sit 25 points clear at the head of the standings, needing a maximum of two wins from their final nine games to seal the title.
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The season victory would be the Reds’ first-ever Premier League title and first top-flight win in 30 years.
But with the coronavirus pandemic bringing the season to a standstill, the season could yet be chalked off – with Liverpool forced to wait to end their three-decade drought.
The season is currently on hold until April 30 at the earliest – with all the signs pointing towards an even longer delay, with dozens of potential scenarios discussed.
While we wait patiently for a concrete update, we’ve taken a look at how the season SHOULD end – based on 10,000 simulations from Opta.
The headline, of course, is Liverpool winning the league – with the simulations predicting they will finish with a whopping 101 points.
That numbers would be an all-time English top-flight record tally of points.
BIG FOUR NO MORE?
The only team to have won more in a season within the top five European Leagues is Juventus in their 2013-14 Serie A victory, when they secured 102 points.
The simulation predicts the Reds beating Manchester City to the title by 21 points – the biggest-ever gap between the top two places in English top-flight history.
Despite the monster gap, City’s tally of 80 points would have been enough to WIN the league in six other seasons – most-recently the 2010-11 season won by Manchester United.
In the predicted model, Tottenham would make a late charge to snatch sixth place – beating Wolves and Sheffield United to the punch.
Leicester have a 59.7 per cent shot of coming third, ahead of Chelsea (39.4 per cent) and Man Utd (30.3 per cent) in fourth and fifth respectively.
Arsenal‘s dreadful season, meanwhile, should see them finish just EIGHTH, says the simulation.
How Opta’s simulation was calculated
- The model estimates the probability of each match outcome (win, draw or loss) given each team’s attacking and defensive quality.
- The team’s attacking and defensive qualities are based on four years of historic results, with more weighting given to their most recent results.
- The model will take into account the quality of the opposition that a team scores or concedes against and reward them accordingly.
- They can simulate the upcoming matches using goal predictions from the Poisson distribution with the two teams’ attacking and defending qualities as inputs.
- They simulate the outcome of the season 10,000 times in order to estimate the likelihood of each team finishing in each league position.
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Watford would desperately cling on to they Premier League status, despite managing a paltry total of just 36 points.
Bournemouth’s 37 points would be the highest tally to still be relegated since Newcastle in 2015-16.
But they would go down along with Norwich – who have a 67.7 per cent chance of finishing last and 93.3 per cent of facing the drop – and Aston Villa.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
