EPL 23-24th January 2016
EPL 23-24th January 2016
Another interesting weekend in the premier league. Here is the usual look through the shot statistics underlying each of the matches.
%matplotlib inline
import league_analysis
from IPython.display import display, HTML
epl = league_analysis.epl
league_analysis.blog_weekly_header(epl, '23/01/2016', '24/01/2016')
Crystal Palace 1-3 Tottenham
Tottenham really starting to look like possible title contenders, especially this week making up ground on both Arsenal and Manchester City. Crystal Palace ended nearly 500 minutes without a goal, but they still have a pretty desparate run of form, they now lead the league in both longest current winless run, with 6, and longest current losing run, with 4. Losing four or more consecutive games is non-trivial, it has happened 5 times so far this season, Aston Villa managed 7, Sunderland managed 5 and Norwich, Bournemouth, Watford and now Crystal Palace have managed 4. Crystal Palace have Bournemouth at home next Tuesday and will not wish to join Aston Villa and Sunderland in the greater than 4 consecutive losses club.
after_game_no_dicts = league_analysis.collect_after_game_dicts(epl, '01/08/2015', '24/01/2016')
league_analysis.plot_changing_stats(epl, after_game_no_dicts, 'current_losing_run', rankings=False)
Leicester 3-0 Stoke
A convincing win. Leicester now have a 3 point lead at the top of the table. However, with Tottenham maintaining pace just 5 points off the lead the title race became a 4-horse race. So even if Leicester can keep this form up for the remainder of the season I guess they only have something like a 1 in 4 chance of winning the title. Betfair has them at 10.5, that's between 10-to-1 and 9-to-1, I think that seems about right.
Manchester United 0-1 Southampton
A very tight affair. In my opinion Manchester United are a pretty good side who simply need to open games up more. But whatever, it is obviously not a great result for them, but surprisingly they remain just 10 points behind leaders Leicester and 7 behind Arsenal and Manchester City.
Norwich 4-5 Liverpool
Wow. Obviously a pretty strange game. Liverpool will be delighted with the win. Other than that though it's difficult to take much from a game like this. Liverpool dominated the shots, by a reasonable margin, they could probably expect to win such a game something like 80% of the time. Those are the kinds of games Liverpool have not been winning enough of this season.
Partly because Norwich had 6 shots, 5 of which were on target and 4 of which were goals Liverpool drop to bottom in PDO. Good weekends for Liverpool and Southampton which means that the top 8 in the league is starting to reflect a little better the top 8 in team rating. Would we be so suprised if Chelsea end the season above West Ham?
Norwich however should start to worry. Partly because the teams immediately above them look to be so far under-performing, so there aren't teams immediately above them who might fall below them, should one of the current bottom three (or two excluding Villa) muster up a run. For a more in-depth analysis, as ever, turn to an informative statsbomb article: Norwich City: Backing Towards The Cliff's Edge.
Sunderland 1-1 Bournemouth
Looks like an opportunity missed for Bournemouth here, who still have a pretty terrible PDO. It seems remarkable that Bournemouth are still only 4 points above the relegation zone. Things look grim for Sunderland when the best they can muster against a team just 4 points above the relegation zone is a draw at home, and one that looks like it could easily have been a defeat.
Watford 2-1 Newcastle
Great result for Watford that was probably required after a slight dip in form. Watford don't really look in any danger of relegation, sitting with a team rating rank of 11th, they are 10th in the league.
So actually this was not a terrible game for Newcastle. Of the bottom three Newcastle are probably best poised to escape. Partly because they have spent some cash in the January transfer window. So even though they have the worst team rating, they also have some small cause for optimism. Additionally, despite the worst team rating they do have the most points of the three. Just two points behind struggling Norwich, it would not take much luck for Newcastle to beat Norwich into 17th.
West Brom 0-0 Aston Villa
Again, Aston Villa show signs of being a non-bottom-three team. But again they don't take 3 points and so they still have a very large gap to make up even just to get into a relegation battle. Here are the remaining fixtures for each of the four teams within 10 points of the bottom:
league_analysis.compare_fixtures(epl, ['Aston Villa', 'Sunderland', 'Newcastle', 'Norwich'])
West Ham play three of these teams in the next four games. More importantly though Sunderland look in for a difficult time and Newcastle not much better, and Norwich have to play Tottenham and Leicester. So if Aston Villa could must something like 7 points, they might get themeselves back into the fight. But they would still only be in a fight.
As an aside Aston Villa are one of only 5 teams to have not lost in their last three games.
West Ham 2-2 Manchester City
Again West Ham competed pretty well here. Although Manchester City did out-shoot them it wasn't by a startling margin. A draw not at all an unrepresentative result.
Arsenal 0-1 Chelsea
Chelsea do the double over Arsenal. Again they did deserve this but again it was a bit unrepresentative based on a red card in the first half for Arsenal. Chelsea fans will be a bit releaved, I am still projecting Chelsea to finish in the top half of the table, but before the weekend only 4 points separated them from the relegation zone. Newcastle losing means they are now 7 points from there and only 4 points from 10th placed Watford.
Chelsea now with the longest current unbeaten run in the league, having not lost for 7 games.
Everton 1-2 Swansea
Another team that looked in trouble a couple of weeks ago have just won two matches to push themselves to a little bit of day-light between themselves and the relagation zone. Everton huffed-and-puffed and got off a lot of shots, but only 2 on target from 20 shots is pretty disappointing. Swansea may have only had 7 shots but 5 on target suggests this victory was not completely unmerited. Swansea one of only three teams to have won both their last two games.
league_analysis.display_current_runs(epl)
Thanks for reading.
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