Topic: The Alternative Premier League Table 2013-14

[Ada069]

Thanks.  It shows that man city are the strongest team.  They just need to cut out the poor performances away from home.

They won 4 from 4 against the big six at home. They lost their only away game..

If anything, considering their poor away form. If that form continues, they will lost their next 4 away games against the big six while winning 1. To finish 5-5.

Chelsea, In my opinion are the strongest in that table. They are 2 from 2 at home while drawing 3 of their 5 away games already.

[Prof]

They won 4 from 4 against the big six at home. They lost their only away game..

If anything, considering their poor away form. If that form continues, they will lost their next 4 away games against the big six while winning 1. To finish 5-5.

Chelsea, In my opinion are the strongest in that table. They are 2 from 2 at home while drawing 3 of their 5 away games already.

That's a fair comment.

I think man city will pick up their away form though.  Them, Chelsea and Arsenal are the title challengers.  Any one of those three can win it.  Fourth place is left for us, Everton, Spurs and Man Utd to fight over

[GregCharrua]

That's a fair comment.

I think man city will pick up their away form though.  Them, Chelsea and Arsenal are the title challengers.  Any one of those three can win it.  Fourth place is left for us, Everton, Spurs and Man Utd to fight over

Do you think Everton is going to maintain their form the entire season? I feel more confident against Spurs and United, because I feel we will be much more consistent in the second half of the season. Everton, though, could go either way for me.

[Prof]

Do you think Everton is going to maintain their form the entire season? I feel more confident against Spurs and United, because I feel we will be much more consistent in the second half of the season. Everton, though, could go either way for me.

Man United are the defending champions, so taking emotion and preconceptions about Moyes out of the equation, and they are likely to put a run of form together.

Spurs have struggled with a new group of players and are only likely to improve if their cohesion gets better.

Everton finished above us last year, are doing better than us so far this season, and I see no reason to think that they'll drop off form wise.

We need to look after ourselves and not rely on any of those three dropping off the pace.

[GregCharrua]

Man United are the defending champions, so taking emotion and preconceptions about Moyes out of the equation, and they are likely to put a run of form together.

Spurs have struggled with a new group of players and are only likely to improve if their cohesion gets better.

Everton finished above us last year, are doing better than us so far this season, and I see no reason to think that they'll drop off form wise.

We need to look after ourselves and not rely on any of those three dropping off the pace.

It's so frustrating to oscillate between the top of the table and a very sobering realization of just how difficult ending in a top four position will be!

[I-was-watching-it-on-Sky]

Do you think Everton is going to maintain their form the entire season? I feel more confident against Spurs and United, because I feel we will be much more consistent in the second half of the season. Everton, though, could go either way for me.

By my calculations, if Everton play to average 4th place form from now on they'll finish on/ around 20W 12D 6L = 72pts [they're already 10W 7D 2L = 37pts.].

Playing to the same form:

We'd be about 21W 8D 9L = 71pts.

United about 20W 9D 9L = 69pts.

Spurs about 20W 9D 9L = 69pts.

So it's going to be close...and we can't afford any more 'Hulls'.

[Nessy76]

It's the halfway point of the season, so worth having a look at where everyone stands.

Team	Points	APLTpts	Max Pts	DAWH	Par pts	T(Par)	T(PPG)
Arsenal	42	-3	99	81	87	84	84
Man City	41	-6	98	78	84	78	82
Chelsea	40	-3	97	77	87	84	80
Everton	37	-8	94	76	82	74	74
Liverpool	36	-9	93	75	81	72	72
Man Utd	34	-11	91	73	79	68	68
Tottenham	34	-15	91	71	75	60	68

Points = Current PLT
APLTpts = Current APLT standing
Max Pts = Total acheivable points if ALL games won to end of the season
DAWH = Total points assuming Draw Aways & Win Homes
Par Pts = Total if team plays to APLT par until end of season
T (par) = Trend to par Total points if team's performance to par in the second half of the season is the same as the first*
T (ppg) = Trend on a points per game basis

*For this, I've simply doubled the score below par, which does not take into account how many Par 3 & Par 1 games a team still has to play.

What I find interesting here is how closely the APLT currently resembles the actual table, with only City & Chelsea's positions reversed, and that is despite there being very little between the top sides.

United and Tottenham definitely seem to be out of the title race - only a perfect run of 19 wins could get them to 90 points, but clearly both could still be in the mix for top four places.

I've included DAWH as well as par, to give a better indication for the top 4 race. Averaging 2 pts per game will usually get you into Europe. As we see here, Spurs need to do at least that to stay on for the 71 point line.

The title favourites are still Man City, although their Par total is a mere 84 points, only 3 above our own.

[Prof]

Nice summary Nessy

[Alistairlfc]

Been looking what would happen if the APL was changed so that the current top 13 at half way were the par 1 teams seen as that would be a more up to date measure of the best team; Liverpool would have only played 1 away par 3 the rest all par 1 and would be -3 off title form. United however who are probably considered our main rivals for 4th would still be -11. They might have closed the gap on us with the two games we've just had but I think that shows how much better a season were having to them, above them with an 'easier' run oh games still to come.

[Roblaar]

As I've found myself sofa bound over Christmas due to a football injury, I thought I'd have a quick look at a different methodology.

I fancied seeing what would happen if each future fixture was given an Expected points value, say 2.2, based on averaging previous years results and then changing the input ranking assumption each week as actual results came in.

Anyway, City win the league, Liverpool come 4, with Arsenal and Chelsea finishing 2nd and 3rd.  If you're interested you can find a bit more here:

http://limitedinsights.blogspot.co.uk/

[Grobbelrevell]

Posted this in another thread, but I think it fits here too:

Thought I'd drop this in here in case others found it interesting. After calculating the PPG for the top 7, and comparing home and away form, as well as form versus (current) top 10 and bottom 10, two things really jumped out:

1) Our poor away form (1.2PPG). And;
2) Our poor form versus current top 10 (0.88PPG).

I then looked at a basic calculation for the top 7 showing:

1) Percentage of away fixtures played against current top 10:

LFC 70%
CFC 56%
THFC 44%
MUFC 40%
EFC 33%
AFC 30%
MCFC 22%

And;

2) Fixtures against current top 10 played away from home:

LFC 78%
CFC 56%
MUFC 44%
THFC 44%
AFC 33%
EFC 33%
MCFC 22%

It certainly adds a slightly different perspective to figures that right now, at first glance, look a little worrying. I think it outlines a very uneven split in fixtures compared to our direct rivals, and - despite that - we're still within a single point of our ultimate target of top 4 (and within touching distance if the top). With that in mind I think we're still in a very positive position heading into the second half of the season.

Moving forward I'd expect our away form (mainly bottom 10 remaining), as well as our form versus top 10 (almost entirely home fixtures remaining) to improve, whilst our home form and form against bottom 10 (currently exceptional) could realistically be expected to decrease slightly. Overall though, I'd still hope (and expect) our overall PPG to increase and push towards the 2.0 that Rodgers has targeted previously.

Despite 2 straight defeats, for me, things still look positive.

[GregCharrua]

As I've found myself sofa bound over Christmas due to a football injury, I thought I'd have a quick look at a different methodology.

I fancied seeing what would happen if each future fixture was given an Expected points value, say 2.2, based on averaging previous years results and then changing the input ranking assumption each week as actual results came in.

Anyway, City win the league, Liverpool come 4, with Arsenal and Chelsea finishing 2nd and 3rd.  If you're interested you can find a bit more here:

http://limitedinsights.blogspot.co.uk/

Very cool, thanks for it!

I could see it, too

1- Man City
2- Le Arse
3- Chelsea
4- LIVERPOOL

[rafa4eva]

The way we play under Rodgers is very effective against weaker teams who aren't able to exploit the space we leave, but will always be vulnerable to good teams.

Under Rafa, it was the opposite, which is why we had so many good results against very good teams, but couldn't get the goal we needed against mid tier sides a bit too frequently.

We now sacrifice control to add creativity.  Unfortunately, at the moment, our creativity isn't very efficient, we make a lot of good situations per goal scored.  If we can become more efficient in converting our attacking positions into goals, we will have more chance to beat stronger teams, but this is likely to be through outscoring rather than getting the odd goal in a tight game.

My analysis in the attacking third thread explores some of this.

http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=310862.0

Thanks Prof, agree with the above, very succinctly written.

[Prof]

[TheShanklyGates]

The Mancs will drop off the chart with one more bad result

[BazC]

Interesting looking at the APLT these days. It's suggesting we're in a scrap with Everton over 4th, the top 3 are going for the title and Spurs and Man U are going to need both us and Everton to screw up as well as stop getting shite results themselves.

Still hoping that we can get into this title challenge ourselves. Winning against Stoke, Everton and Arsenal over the next handful of games will aid that. As long as we also win the games we should be winning of course.

[killer-heels]

Interesting looking at the APLT these days. It's suggesting we're in a scrap with Everton over 4th, the top 3 are going for the title and Spurs and Man U are going to need both us and Everton to screw up as well as stop getting shite results themselves.

Still hoping that we can get into this title challenge ourselves. Winning against Stoke, Everton and Arsenal over the next handful of games will aid that. As long as we also win the games we should be winning of course.

The 2 back to back losses may have killed our chances. On paper although it's good to get those game out the way early, it also means that you are chasing the leaders and in this situation, 3 sides. Gives us less room for error and errors are very much possible considering we play the likes of Stoke in the league next.

[paddysour]

Am I reading that right when I say that we have been in title challenging form over the last 5 games?

[BazC]

The 2 back to back losses may have killed our chances. On paper although it's good to get those game out the way early, it also means that you are chasing the leaders and in this situation, 3 sides. Gives us less room for error and errors are very much possible considering we play the likes of Stoke in the league next.

It'll balance out if we beat them both at home. But actually, it's the Hull loss which was the bad loss in this run of games.

If we can get back on a wimning streak I think we go into the Arsenal game with a shot of going top of the table again. Some difficult and tricky games coming up though.

[Prof]

Am I reading that right when I say that we have been in title challenging form over the last 5 games?

Level par for the last 7.  The win at Spurs offset the two losses.

[Nessy76]

It'll balance out if we beat them both at home. But actually, it's the Hull loss which was the bad loss in this run of games.

We've lost two par 3 matches, that's six points dropped. The Chelsea and Man City results are only a point dropped apiece here. Stoke and Fulham away coming up as good chances to gain points to par.

[poseidon]

We've lost two par 3 matches, that's six points dropped. The Chelsea and Man City results are only a point dropped apiece here. Stoke and Fulham away coming up as good chances to gain points to par.

We don't seem very good at getting above-par results. This season we've only gotten 1 over-par result at Spurs (what a performance it was, though). We've had 6 under-par results so far. Not a good ratio but similar to last season. Last season we had 3 above-par results, and 15 under-par results.

In comparison, this season, City have 4 above-par results, and 5 under par results. Arsenal have 4 underpars and 3 above-pars. These teams show that they are capable of making up for their mistakes. We however don't have a good track record under BR of getting above-par results, which is what worries me. Even Everton, notwithstanding 7 under par results, has 3 clocked big overpar performances.

[Islander]

I think the main issue with LFC not gaining many above par results are the teams they have played where they can pick up points. The par 1 games can be split into two groups; one showing the 'hard' teams and the other the 'easy' teams as follows:

Hard - Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs, Everton

Easy - WBA, Swansea, West Ham, Norwich, Fulham

Of the hard teams we have played them all away apart from the Mancs but it the easy group we have only played Swansea away meaning that hopefully we will gain points when we play the remainder of these teams in the second half of the season.

[Frizzo]

Am I reading that right when I say that we have been in title challenging form over the last 5 games?

By this system yes. The two losses don't hurt too much as we're not expected to take points there.

[emitime]

Hard - Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs, Everton

Easy - WBA, Swansea, West Ham, Norwich, Fulham

Of the hard teams we have played them all away apart from the Mancs but it the easy group we have only played Swansea away meaning that hopefully we will gain points when we play the remainder of these teams in the second half of the season.

All of those 'easy' teams aren't performing anywhere near to the same level as last year either, so it's realistic (though still not really nailed on) that we could make up all 8 points on par from them.

[I-was-watching-it-on-Sky]

Here's the form band for game week 20...

[Nessy76]

We don't seem very good at getting above-par results. This season we've only gotten 1 over-par result at Spurs (what a performance it was, though). We've had 6 under-par results so far. Not a good ratio but similar to last season. Last season we had 3 above-par results, and 15 under-par results.

Only if you take the par concept completely at face value. Clearly Stoke and Fulham are easier places to get a win than Man City, Chelsea and Arsenal.

[ElstonGunn]

We don't seem very good at getting above-par results. This season we've only gotten 1 over-par result at Spurs (what a performance it was, though). We've had 6 under-par results so far. Not a good ratio but similar to last season. Last season we had 3 above-par results, and 15 under-par results.

In comparison, this season, City have 4 above-par results, and 5 under par results. Arsenal have 4 underpars and 3 above-pars. These teams show that they are capable of making up for their mistakes. We however don't have a good track record under BR of getting above-par results, which is what worries me. Even Everton, notwithstanding 7 under par results, has 3 clocked big overpar performances.

What Nessy said, but our par-1 games have been exceptionally difficult, while our par-3 games have been generally easy.

[MaxJ]

Here's the form band for game week 20...

Worst away record out of the group, but as many have mentioned we've played only the Mancs at home.

Second half of the season is very different. We may see fewer high scoring games at Anfield, and hopefully we can start to pick up more points on the road against the lower sides.

[Red number seven]

One of the basic premises of the APLT is that you need 71 points to finish 4th and 90 to win the league. I suspect this season might be slightly more even, with a lower points total required to win the thing, but 71 remains a decent target for competing for 4th.

Looking at our remaining fixtures, I think they spin down into 4 general groups:  "Difficult aways", "Difficult homes", "Easier aways" and "Easier homes."

Gp 1. 5 "difficult" aways (Tottenham, Man City, Chelsea, Southampton, Man Utd)
Gp 2. 7 "easier" aways (Stoke, West Brom, Fulham, Cardiff, West Ham, Norwich, Crystal Palace)
Gp 3. 5 "difficult" homes (Everton, Arsenal, Tottenham,  Man City, Chelsea)
Gp 4. 6 "easier" homes (Cardiff, Hull, Aston Villa, Swansea, Sunderland, Newcastle)

If we average 0.5 points (total 2.5), 2 points (total 14), 1.5 points (total 7.5), 2.5 (total 15) points respectivey for these groups of fixtures we will be at 69 points, 2 short of the magic 71.

I think we can overperform in relation to this in groups 1 (a single win will do it, and there is no reason we can't get results at any of these places - only City really scare me) and possibly 3 (I could conceive of 3/5 wins). However, I am very nervous about our ability to be consistently averaging 2 points away against the lesser lights and it leaves little room for fuck ups at home against them. If we can get Sturridge, Suarez and Coutinho (and/or a further gamebreaking/goalscoring threat emerging or signed in Jan?) all fit and unsuspended at the same time, we can hopefully get back to scoring 3s, 4s and 5s against the lesser sides home and away - for me this is key to us achieving CL football.

Based on this, we remain +2.5 after the 5 Christmas/NY fixtues. The sensational win vs Spurs gives us that big jump, whereas the two "easier" home wins give us + 2 X 0.5 counteract the two "difficult" away defeats 2 X -0.5.

I still think our chances of top 4 are excellent and are likely to be determined by whether we can perfrom in the 7 "easier" ways.

[KennyDaggers]

Interesting looking at the APLT these days. It's suggesting we're in a scrap with Everton over 4th, the top 3 are going for the title and Spurs and Man U are going to need both us and Everton to screw up as well as stop getting shite results themselves.

Still hoping that we can get into this title challenge ourselves. Winning against Stoke, Everton and Arsenal over the next handful of games will aid that. As long as we also win the games we should be winning of course.

We need to beat Everton & Arsenal just to achieve a par.

[Blue Coop]

Here's the form band for game week 20...

This is a great comparison table, nicely done.

United's home form is absolutely woeful.

[I-was-watching-it-on-Sky]

This is a great comparison table, nicely done.

United's home form is absolutely woeful.

Thank you...but the credit is not mine.

Prof came up with the idea and I just update it week by week.

[RJT]

In the spirit of this post (looking beyond the actual Premier League table) here's something I cooked up today:

1. I've taken every Premier League match so far and recorded it as 1 or 0 depending on whether the home team wins or not.
2. I've regressed the outcome on a constant (the average probability with which a home team wins) and variables that denote which teams are playing in the match (the home team and the away team).
3. I take the average home/away coefficients for each team - these determine how the probability of the home team winning changes, for instance if Man City is the home team, then the variable I've included for them bump ups the probability of winning due to their better-than-average performance. I then scale these coefficients (so that the worst home/away team has a score of zero).

Here are the results:

http://i44.tinypic.com/6f5uhe.png

(Blue = home strength, red = away strength, green = average strength)

Home strength

Top 6:
1. Manchester City - 25% stronger than Arsenal
2. Arsenal - 5% stronger than Liverpool
3. Liverpool - 4% stronger than Chelsea
4. Chelsea - 66% stronger than Everton
5. Everton - 19% stronger than Hull
6. Hull - 10% stronger than Manchester United

Away strength

Top 6:
1. Everton - 6% stronger than Manchester United
2. Manchester United - 9% stronger than Arsenal
3. Arsenal - 7% stronger than West Brom
4. West Brom - 5% stronger than Tottenham
5. Tottenham - 2% stronger than Liverpool
6. Liverpool - 5% stronger than Southampton

Average strength (50%/50% weighting home/away)

Top 6:
1. Arsenal - 9% stronger than Liverpool
2. Liverpool - 2% stronger than Manchester City
3: Manchester City - 12% stronger than Everton
4. Everton - 3% stronger than Chelsea
5. Chelsea - 12% stronger than Manchester United
6: Manchester United - 25% stronger than Tottenham



The reason why these rankings differ from the league table is that they - similar to the APT - take into account performance against better teams (hence West Brom's positioning in the top 6 of away teams). Makes for some interesting reading...

[U13]

I would have been happy with this result no matter what but knowing that it's a game that allows us to get +2 points in relation to this table makes it that bit better.

[Prof]

I would have been happy with this result no matter what but knowing that it's a game that allows us to get +2 points in relation to this table makes it that bit better.

[Black Bull Nova]

So important we won today because of the way results, fixtures and points have fallen, whilst we are slightly off the pace it's actually more even than it looks because of who/where we've played,what is becoming clear is that if we finish in the top 4, United are unlikely to do so, as if we needed more incentive.

[Nessy76]

Interesting run coming up in terms of the race for 4th with Everton. Today's result puts us 1 pt ahead.
EFC:   WBA (A) par 1 LFC (A) par 1 AST (H) par 3
LFC:   AST (H) par 3 EFC (H) par 3 WBA (A) par 1

West Brom away and Villa at home either side of the derby. It's a head-to-head race for 4th in the APLT, with Everton getting an early chance to make up points when they visit the baggies. A win for us at Anfield would redress that, of course, while a loss would be a major blow.

[Hij]

I'm looking forward to seeing the table

[Zeb]

I'm looking forward to seeing the table