Match Forecasts: January 10-13

We're back from holiday this week with a new set of predictions, and a newly updated regression model to boot.

The big game of note this weekend is obviously Atletico Madrid vs Barcelona. Our model has noticed that home field is more important in Spain than anywhere else, so it makes a very aggressive prediction in favor of the hosts to the tune of a 57% win rate. Before you sprint to the betting window, however, note that we have seen a dip in form for Barca due to the absence of Lionel Messi, and as it cannot account for lineup changes his return should provide the Spanish champions a huge boost. Still, this will easily be the biggest test Barcelona have faced all season.

Lastly, our league projections are coming soon, which I guess would be more fun if the title weren't essentially wrapped up by Bayern, Juventus, and PSG in their respective leagues. But the Premier League should see a roaring finish, so here's a quick preview of the title race based on 5000 simulations of the remaining games:

Team	Avg Pts	Champs
Man City	83.9	57.6%
Arsenal	80.7	22.5%
Chelsea	78.9	13.3%
Liverpool	76.5	6.4%

And for the weekend action:

EPL Holiday match forecasts

Happy holidays to everyone!

Match Forecasts: November 8-10

With another weekend of matches to come in Europe, let's take a look at the match odds.

The first of the main events in this round features Manchester United hosting Premier League leaders Arsenal, who we split about evenly. Meanwhile, Napoli visits Juventus, who now top our Serie A predictive ratings, and our model likes them to take a win over half the time. In Spain Real Madrid are expected to take care of Sociedad and Villarreal, who our numbers have loved all season long, are surprising favorites to come out on top over Atletico Madrid.

More content to come in this space when I get some more time, including final table predictions with a view to handicap races for titles, Champions League spots, and relegation.

Match Forecasts: October 25-28

After an interesting week in the Champions League, domestic competitions are back in Europe this weekend and that gives me the opportunity to cook up another batch of match probabilities.

Two high profile games stand out among the rest. In England, the top two teams in our rankings square off as Manchester City travel to London to face Chelsea. Our mathematical model likes a home win just a bit more than the bookmakers do at a 46.6% clip, though against big clubs like City, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho tends to play very conservatively.

In Spain, we get the first Clasico of the season hosted by Barcelona. While Real Madrid managed to regain the second spot in our La Liga rankings from local rivals Atletico, our forecast has them coming out on top only 6.2% of the time. We therefore see some value in a Barcelona win, currently priced at 1.75 over at Bet365.

Flip around the tabs here to see the probabilities of games from each of the top five European leagues:

Premier League Match Odds: Final Round

Back for the final time this season to post odds on this weekend's final round of Premier League matches.

With Manchester United winning the title last month and Wigan confirmed as the final relegated team on Tuesday, the only race with long term consequences is for the final Champions League spot between Arsenal and Tottenham (though Arsenal have a chance to move ahead of Chelsea into 3rd). Tottenham need to defeat Sunderland at home and have Arsenal either lose or draw in their game at Newcastle. Using the match forecasts in the table below, Arsenal have a 70.6% probability to finish ahead of their rivals, giving Spurs odds of only 29.4%.

Premier League Match Forecasts, May 11-14

Now that I've posted the preview of the Championship Playoffs, all that's left for this football season is the final two rounds of Premier League action, as well as the FA Cup final. I'll be back tomorrow to give an update to the races for the Champions League places, as well as the relegation battle, following the midweek games.

EDIT: Please note that the FA Cup final was treated as a neutral field. Also, if you were to assume that extra time and penalties are a 50/50 proposition, Man City would win the cup 82.5% of the time, leaving 17.5% to Wigan.

Match Forecasts May 4-8

The calendar has turned to May, and in English football that means that the Premier League is winding down and the lower divisions are finalizing the teams that will be promoted and relegated. For The Football Forecast, it means we don't have League Two poisoning our bet numbers anymore. Also, the numbers finally seem to have caught up to Reading's disastrous managerial change as, at last, they do not see value in victory for the Royals against Fulham this week.

The strong plays are the ones you'd expect from a statistical model: bet the teams with no reason to care to defeat highly motivated sides. This week is a good litmus test, as our Premier League projections see value in West Brom over Wigan, West Ham over Newcastle, and Man United over Chelsea.

Match Odds April 27-30

Checking in today to post the odds for this weekend's matches, update the team ratings, and the wagering results.

This is apparently the final weekend of games for League One and League Two. Oddly, the former is the best league so far for the predictions here, while the latter has been disastrous.

As for the Premier League, the best values appear to be on Reading at home against QPR and Sunderland playing away to Aston Villa.

Back soon to forecast the top four, relegation, and promotion races.