EPL 11-13th September 2015

Another weekend in the EPL, let's look at the basic statistics for all the games:

%matplotlib inline
import league_analysis
from IPython.display import display, HTML
epl = league_analysis.epl
league_analysis.display_matches(epl, '12/09/15', '14/09/15')

Everton 3-1 Chelsea

Chelsea are not having a great start to the season. As others have pointed out this is not a case of having underlying performance and getting a bunch of unlucky results. The performance for Chelsea simply is not there. In this case they have a respectable number of shots at goal, in fact out-shooting their hosts 14-15, but it is the shots on target that reveals that the score line was anything but a fluke. Everton had 9 shots on target to Chelsea's 2. If we take the average number of shots on target per goal in the premier league and multiply by 9 vs 2 we get an average score line of 2.54 vs 0.57, so 3-1 is perfectly fair scoreline given those shots on targets. I still expect Chelsea to somewhat improve, but they will have to improve their performances rather than just allow luck to regress to the mean.

Arsenal, Watford, Leicester, Norwich, Man City, and Tottenham

Convincing victories (for varying definitions of the word 'convincing') for Arsenal, Watford, Leicester, Norwich and Tottenham. Generally indicating that they were worthy winners.

Southampton 0-0 West Brom

Southampton can consider themselves a tad unfortunate not to have scored a winner for a very valuable away victory. The total number of shots shows some dominance and the fact that they had 4 shots on target suggests that they weren't simply shooting on sight of goal.

Manchester United 3-1 Liverpool

Manchester United continue to over-perform their statistics. For Man United, it does have the feel of a an over-performance with some real underlying strength, rather than simply riding their luck. To have scored with all 3 shots on target (one of which was a penalty) would generally leave the opposition feeling a little hard done by. But few who actually watched the game would consider the Liverpool side really worthy of even a draw. In short, Manchester United are becoming an interesting team to watch.

West Ham 2-0 Newcastle

Which leaves us with West Ham's win over Newcastle. Again, Newcastle could feel a touch aggrieved not to have garnered a draw here. In general West Ham are over-performing. Scoring with 2 out of their 3 shots on target is a very good return. I somehow suspect that West Ham will begin reverting somewhat. But on the positive side, they out-shot their opponents with a healthy 17 shots, albeit conceding 17.

	Home	Away
Team	Arsenal	Stoke
Goals	2	0
Shots	29	9
SOT	12	4

	Home	Away
Team	Crystal Palace	Man City
Goals	0	1
Shots	10	21
SOT	2	7

	Home	Away
Team	Everton	Chelsea
Goals	3	1
Shots	14	15
SOT	9	2

	Home	Away
Team	Man United	Liverpool
Goals	3	1
Shots	9	8
SOT	3	4

	Home	Away
Team	Norwich	Bournemouth
Goals	3	1
Shots	12	7
SOT	4	2