The author

Matt Carrell is the highly acclaimed author of three novels and several short stories. His latest book is A Matter of Life and Death, set in a fictional seaside town where the local team is struggling for Premier League survival. Please check out the links to his 5 star rated works on Amazon.

Friday 1 May 2020

Season ends? This is how West Ham get relegated and it's Spurs v Arsenal again

As each day passes, it seems more and more likely that the Premier League season will be unable to complete its fixtures. Some suggest that we should defer the start of next season - but with other European leagues closing off this season and preparing for next, it's not an option if English clubs want to play in the next Champions and Europa Leagues. The null and void option would not reward (or punish) clubs for their performance in the games played to date. Taking the current positions is unfair to those clubs with games in hand. So the preferred solution now appears to be "points per game." This assumes that we can say that teams will continue to accumulate points at the same average rate as they have since the start of the season. Obviously it takes no account of whether the games that teams have already played are against tougher or easier options than those that remain - and it's beyond me to imagine a calculation that could account for that. All football fans will also recognise the fact that a team's performance is often very different at the end of the season -that's the nature of football. It's why the season's close is often thrilling. It is NOT predictable.
So maybe points per game is the fairest - but there is a wrinkle. It is possible to look at one aspect of those games in hand. Evaluating the difficulty of those fixtures by opponent its too subjective - but there is a valid refinement to the average points. What if we were to look at whether the points we are "averaging" are from home or away games and extrapolate them separately?
The tables below show the calculations.
At the top it makes no difference to European qualification - but if the ban on Man City is upheld, Man United will qualify for the Champions League and either Spurs or Arsenal will replace them in the Europa League. It's Arsenal if we adopt simple points averaging. It's Spurs if you take the table as is - or adjust the extrapolation for home or away games.
It is the bottom of the table where it is far more interesting. Assuming teams are relegated - it is Bournemouth, Aston Villa and Norwich, UNLESS you adjust the points average for the "home or away" factor. Then Bournemouth survive and West Ham go down.
This method takes account of the fact that Bournemouth have been stronger at home than West Ham and more of their remaining games were scheduled for the Vitality Stadium. It's not "right", nothing can be if the season is not completed but just as points per game is better than taking the current table, this eliminates part of the bias of a simple average.  





HOME RESULTS AWAY RESULTS TOTAL


Played Goal diff Point
1 Liverpool 15 45 14 37 29 45 82
2 Man City 13 29 15 28 28 37 57
3 Leicester 15 30 14 23 29 30 53
4 Chelsea 15 24 14 24 29 12 48
5 Man Utd 15 29 14 16 29 14 45
6 Sheff Utd 15 24 13 19 28 5 43
7 Wolves 15 22 14 21 29 7 43
8 Spurs 14 26 15 15 29 7 41
9 Arsenal 15 26 13 14 28 4 40
10 Crystal Palace 15 22 14 17 29 -6 39
11 Burnley 15 23 14 16 29 -6 39
12 Everton 14 25 15 12 29 -9 37
13 Newcastle 14 21 15 14 29 -16 35
14 Southampton 15 14 14 20 29 -17 34
15 Brighton 14 18 15 11 29 -8 29
16 West Ham 14 15 15 12 29 -15 27
17 Watford 14 17 15 10 29 -17 27
18 Bournemouth 14 17 15 10 29 -18 27
19 Aston Villa 13 17 15 8 28 -22 25
20 Norwich 14 15 15 6 29 -27 21





















Simple average
Adjusted



Pts  Pos.
Pts Pos.
1 Liverpool
107.45 1
107.21 1
2 Man City
77.36 2
77.85 2
3 Leicester
69.45 3
69.21 3
4 Chelsea
62.90 4
62.97 4
5 Man Utd
58.97 5
58.45 5
6 Sheff Utd
58.36 6
58.17 6
7 Wolves
56.34 7
56.37 7
8 Spurs
53.72 9
54.29 8
9 Arsenal
54.29 8
53.39 9
10 Crystal Palace
51.10 11
50.94 10
11 Burnley
51.10 10
50.85 11
12 Everton
48.48 12
49.13 12
13 Newcastle
45.86 13
46.23 13
14 Southampton
44.55 14
44.88 14
15 Brighton
38.00 15
38.36 15
16 West Ham
35.38 16
35.56 18
17 Watford
35.38 17
35.74 16
18 Bournemouth
35.38 18
35.74 17
19 Aston Villa
33.93 19
34.98 19
20 Norwich
27.52 20
27.96 20