EPL 23rd-25th April 2016

English Premier League 23rd-25th of April

Leicester take a big step towards the title as Spurs falter against West Brom. Everything else in a little bit of stasis as we wind-up the premier league. A large block of clubs with little to play for.

In [1]:
%matplotlib inline
import league_analysis
from IPython.display import display, HTML
epl = league_analysis.epl
display(HTML(league_analysis.blog_weekly_header(epl, '23/04/2016', '25/04/2016')))
Home Away
Team Aston Villa Southampton
Goals 2 4
Shots 16 17
SOT 7 7
Home Away
Team Bournemouth Chelsea
Goals 1 4
Shots 13 16
SOT 4 4
Home Away
Team Liverpool Newcastle
Goals 2 2
Shots 13 6
SOT 4 3
Home Away
Team Man City Stoke
Goals 4 0
Shots 11 14
SOT 6 2
Home Away
Team Leicester Swansea
Goals 4 0
Shots 18 9
SOT 9 1
Home Away
Team Sunderland Arsenal
Goals 0 0
Shots 12 20
SOT 3 7
Home Away
Team Tottenham West Brom
Goals 1 1
Shots 19 16
SOT 2 3
Position Team Points
1 Leicester 76
2 Tottenham 69
3 Arsenal 64
- Man City 64
5 Man United 59
6 West Ham 56
7 Liverpool 55
8 Southampton 54
9 Stoke 47
- Chelsea 47
11 Watford 41
- Bournemouth 41
- West Brom 41
- Everton 41
15 Swansea 40
16 Crystal Palace 39
17 Sunderland 31
- Norwich 31
19 Newcastle 30
20 Aston Villa 16
Position Team Team Rating
1 Tottenham 0.25107234378705806
2 Man City 0.2461415592871838
3 Liverpool 0.16781349606087162
4 Arsenal 0.13402000842322226
5 Leicester 0.07971627277917204
6 Southampton 0.07376451592892258
7 Chelsea 0.056824124797705114
8 Man United 0.05567193099522776
9 West Ham 0.041456005799134034
10 Everton -0.011922972189335183
11 Bournemouth -0.03722365730797268
12 Watford -0.07672192497000656
13 Swansea -0.08705898497147734
14 Crystal Palace -0.08717824904516029
15 Stoke -0.1031083879377967
16 Norwich -0.12090656710033323
17 Sunderland -0.13012919376824242
18 West Brom -0.15250085765791244
19 Newcastle -0.16831721657135482
20 Aston Villa -0.20470190076462774
Position Team PDO
1 Leicester 0.12400568181818183
2 West Ham 0.0714817880794702
3 Chelsea 0.06083290311478229
4 Man United 0.06026785714285715
5 Everton 0.06008428657435283
6 Arsenal 0.05681818181818182
7 West Brom 0.04474272930648765
8 Man City 0.03937320679761641
9 Watford 0.03469661414683206
10 Tottenham 0.02777777777777779
11 Sunderland 0.02736443883984868
12 Southampton 0.020129032258064505
13 Stoke -0.008436853002070366
14 Crystal Palace -0.025930851063829807
15 Swansea -0.03484848484848485
16 Liverpool -0.0812901977851927
17 Norwich -0.0850023288309269
18 Newcastle -0.09498910675381261
19 Bournemouth -0.13136645962732918
20 Aston Villa -0.16064085447263018

Leicester 4-0 Swansea, Tottenham 1-1 West Brom

So Tottenham would really have liked these results to have been swapped. Gaining two points on Leicester would have put them just 3 points behind and with a superior goal difference probably favourites. As it is, Leicester need one win from three, or three draws. Even after the result on Sunday, if Tottenham had seen past Pulis's West Brom, Leicester would still potentially need 5 points from 3 games. Winning one, losing one and drawing one seems a pretty plausible haul from their three remaining games, which will now be enough, but would not have been had Tottenham won on Monday night and their remaining games.

You have to say from the shot statistics Leicester really deserved their win against a Swansea side who are not quite mathematically safe since Norwich have 4 games to play, but can probably rest easy. In contrast a 1-1 draw seemed a fair result on Monday night.

In [2]:
league_analysis.compare_fixtures(epl, ['Leicester', 'Tottenham'])
Leicester Tottenham
Man United (A) Chelsea (A)
Everton (H) Southampton (H)
Chelsea (A) Newcastle (A)

The remaining fixtures suggest it is certainly possible for Leicester to lose all three. Manchester United away from home looks tough, their best chance is probably Everton at home, but Chelsea are also winding down in holiday mode. From their point of view as well Tottenham don't have a guaranteed 9 points. One draw and they could still possibly win the title if Leicester do indeed lose all three games. But you have to say the title looks pretty likely to go to Leicester now.

Aston Villa 2-4 Southampton

Something of a summary of Aston Villa's whole season. Even when they have managed to play relatively well they have not really reaped any rewards. This is why they are dead last in PDO. Of course they are also dead last in team rating so the team is not good. But there is an argument that they have deserved the odd ray of sunshine which they haven't had.

Bournemouth 1-4 Chelsea

As I've said I'm pretty glad to see Bournemouth remaining in the premier league for next season. First of all they deserve it, but also they are just an interesting case-study for the statistics crowd. In this game they probably did make some errors that deserved to see them lose, but 1-4 is an unflattering score-line for what was a non-terrible display.

Manchester City 4-0 Stoke

It is not often that Manchester City are out-shot. Regardless of shot quality.

In [4]:
def qualifying_game(game):
    shots = game.HS - game.AS
    return (shots < 0 and game.HomeTeam == 'Man City') or (shots > 0 and game.AwayTeam == 'Man City') 
games = [g for g in epl.matches if qualifying_game(g)]
display(HTML(league_analysis.html_games(games)))
Home Away
Team Man City Liverpool
Goals 1 4
Shots 11 14
SOT 3 9
Home Away
Team Sunderland Man City
Goals 0 1
Shots 11 6
SOT 2 2
Home Away
Team Liverpool Man City
Goals 3 0
Shots 11 4
SOT 7 2
Home Away
Team Man City Stoke
Goals 4 0
Shots 11 14
SOT 6 2

So just four times have Manchester City been out-shot this season. Twice to Liverpool, both games they lost, otherwise they have won both times. Both times you might also suggest were teams that suprisingly out-shot Manchester City.

Liverpool 2-2 Newcastle, Sunderland 0-0 Arsenal

A great point for both Newcastle and Sunderland, both of which could not have been too confident of achieving anything. Both games involved superior teams that out-played the relegation embattled north-east teams. But both of them managed a point.

In [5]:
league_analysis.compare_fixtures(epl, ['Newcastle', 'Sunderland', 'Norwich'])
Newcastle Sunderland Norwich
Crystal Palace (H) Stoke (A) Arsenal (A)
Aston Villa (A) Chelsea (H) Man United (H)
Tottenham (H) Everton (H) Watford (H)

Really hard to predict which of the three will stay up. Seems unlikely to be Norwich, although they have an extra game to play against Everton. Still, hard to see them getting anything at the Emirates, and Manchester United are not the best visitors to have, especially since they should still be gunning for a Champions' league place. Watford at home looks like their best bet. Sunderland also have a pretty tricky run-in. Newcastle look to have the easiest run-in, both Palace and Villa look winnable, and Tottenham may have already lost the league by the final day.

So, actually, I'm going to predict that Newcastle stay up.

Thanks for reading.

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