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2014-15 Season Predictions and Target Setting

Hi Guys, This is my first contribution to this greatest blog ever ;) It is a little long and I'll try to cover some ground, so please give it a read and comment.

Objective of this article is to assign target to Chelsea for each match of this season so that we can know at every stage of this season where we stand in order to fulfil our wish to win 5th league title. There was a similar exercise by P-Lan last year in which he categorised all teams in three categories and assigned points basis the category of the opponents. I'll also maintain the assumption that there are 6 title contenders - Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs, City, United and Pool - and repeat everything I am doing for Chelsea to other teams in a neutral manner. The target points for each fixture (say Manchester United at Home) will be different for each club because winning at spurs or QPR is more difficult for Arsenal and Chelsea than for Manchester teams. Similarly winning at Everton is more difficult for Liverpool than Chelsea and Arsenal.

Historical performance

Before assigning targets to every match, lets see how Chelsea fared in the similar fixture last season and the season before that and season before that one also. So the first step is calculating average points gathered in last 4 seasons for each of 38 matches we are going to play. I have selected 4 seasons as I think they are good enough sample while retaining most of teams that are there this season.

There are 11 teams, excluding ourselves, that have played in last 4 seasons and will also play in this season. Getting averages for these 22 fixtures is easy. Some of teams like Southampton, QPR, Swansea, West Ham etc. were there in some of seasons and we can take those fixtures. But we have to equate some teams in previous seasons to Burnley and Leicester in this season for us to complete the exercise. Since most of the main fixtures are already settled I have allocated rest of the fixtures/ teams in a fashion shown below.

# 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15
1 Arsenal Arsenal Arsenal Arsenal Arsenal
2 Aston Villa Aston Villa Aston Villa Aston Villa Aston Villa
3 Wolverhampton Wanderers Wolverhampton Wanderers Reading Cardiff City Burnley
4 Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea
5 Bolton Wanderers Bolton Wanderers Norwich City Crystal Palace Crystal Palace
6 Everton Everton Everton Everton Everton
7 Wigan Athletic Wigan Athletic Wigan Athletic Hull City Hull City
8 Fulham Fulham Fulham Fulham Leicester City
9 Liverpool Liverpool Liverpool Liverpool Liverpool
10 Manchester City Manchester City Manchester City Manchester City Manchester City
11 Manchester United Manchester United Manchester United Manchester United Manchester United
12 Newcastle United Newcastle United Newcastle United Newcastle United Newcastle United
13 Birmingham City Queens Park Rangers Queens Park Rangers Norwich City Queens Park Rangers
14 Blackburn Rovers Blackburn Rovers Southampton Southampton Southampton
15 Stoke City Stoke City Stoke City Stoke City Stoke City
16 Sunderland Sunderland Sunderland Sunderland Sunderland
17 Blackpool Swansea City Swansea City Swansea City Swansea City
18 Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur
19 West Bromwich Albion West Bromwich Albion West Bromwich Albion West Bromwich Albion West Bromwich Albion
20 West Ham United Norwich City West Ham United West Ham United West Ham United

Now all we have to do is take points from every game from previous seasons and see how the table comes up.

# Rival Place 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 Average
1 Arsenal H 3 0 3 3 2.25
2 Aston Villa H 1 0 3 3 1.75
3 Burnley H 3 3 3 3 3.00
4 Chelsea H 0 0 0 0 0.00
5 Crystal Palace H 3 3 3 3 3.00
6 Everton H 1 3 3 3 2.50
7 Hull City H 3 3 3 3 3.00
8 Leicester City H 3 1 1 3 2.00
9 Liverpool H 0 0 1 3 1.00
10 Manchester City H 3 3 1 3 2.50
11 Manchester United H 3 1 0 3 1.75
12 Newcastle United H 1 0 3 3 1.75
13 Queens Park Rangers H 3 3 0 1 1.75
14 Southampton H 3 3 1 3 2.50
15 Stoke City H 3 3 3 3 3.00
16 Sunderland H 0 3 3 0 1.50
17 Swansea City H 3 3 3 3 3.00
18 Tottenham Hotspur H 3 1 1 3 2.00
19 West Bromwich Albion H 3 3 3 1 2.50
20 West Ham United H 3 3 3 1 2.50
21 Arsenal A 0 1 3 1 1.25
22 Aston Villa A 1 3 3 0 1.75
23 Burnley A 0 3 1 3 1.75
24 Chelsea A 0 0 0 0 0.00
25 Crystal Palace A 3 3 3 0 2.25
26 Everton A 0 0 3 0 0.75
27 Hull City A 3 1 3 3 2.50
28 Leicester City A 1 1 3 3 2.00
29 Liverpool A 0 0 1 3 1.00
30 Manchester City A 0 0 0 3 0.75
31 Manchester United A 0 0 3 1 1.00
32 Newcastle United A 1 3 0 0 1.00
33 Queens Park Rangers A 0 0 1 3 1.00
34 Southampton A 3 3 0 3 2.25
35 Stoke City A 1 1 3 0 1.25
36 Sunderland A 3 3 3 3 3.00
37 Swansea City A 3 1 1 3 2.00
38 Tottenham Hotspur A 1 1 3 1 1.50
39 West Bromwich Albion A 3 0 0 1 1.00
40 West Ham United A 3 1 0 3 1.75

So assuming Chelsea performance is average of last 4 seasons, we get a season total of 73 points. Not at all suitable for title challenge so lets take these averages as base for 2014-15 season and add some points to achieve a target for each match.

Target Setting

Before setting a target for each match, let's determine the target for full season. What is the points tally we need to achieve to win this season? Again, we will go back to the 4 seasons that we have and see what are the scores of runner-ups

Season Second Position Points
2010-11 Chelsea 71
2011-12 Manchester United 89
2012-13 Manchester City 78
2013-14 Liverpool 84
2014-15 Points to win title 90

Maximum points collected by runner-ups is 89. This means 90 points are good enough for us to win the title this time. Now we know we have to allocate 17 points (90-73) to our 38 matches and that my friends will be target for each match.

Average of last 4 seasons 73
Points need to finish first 90
Difference to be added 17
Max. additions per match 0.54

Maximum additions per match means that we might already have an average of 2.75 in a fixture so we can add only 0.25 there and rest have to allocated elsewhere.

Points Chelsea Man City Man United Arsenal Liverpool Tottenham
Average of last 4 seasons 73 81 81 73 64 68
Points need to finish first 90 90 90 90 90 90
Difference to be added 17 9 10 18 26 22
Max. additions per match 0.54 0.35 0.33 0.54 0.74 0.71

Now we have targets for each of these 38 matches for these 6 teams. These targets take into account how the team have performed over the last 4 years for these fixtures and the improvement they must do to in each of those to win the title. Rearranging the matches in order of fixture list, we get the following table

Match week Chelsea Manchester City Manchester United Arsenal Liverpool Tottenham
1 2 3 3 3 2 2
2 5 6 6 5 3 5
3 6 9 8 8 5 8
4 9 10 11 9 7 11
5 10 13 14 12 10 13
6 13 16 17 15 13 15
7 15 18 19 16 15 18
8 18 21 22 19 17 19
9 20 24 24 22 20 22
10 22 26 25 25 22 25
11 24 28 28 28 24 27
12 27 31 30 30 27 29
13 30 33 33 32 29 32
14 32 33 36 35 32 33
15 34 35 38 36 35 36
16 37 38 41 39 37 39
17 39 41 43 41 38 42
18 42 44 45 44 41 45
19 44 47 47 47 44 46
20 46 49 49 49 47 48
21 49 50 51 52 49 50
22 51 52 54 54 52 53
23 54 53 57 56 55 56
24 56 56 60 57 57 58
25 59 57 63 60 60 60
26 62 60 66 61 62 62
27 65 61 68 64 64 63
28 67 64 70 67 67 66
29 70 66 72 70 69 68
30 73 69 74 72 71 71
31 76 72 77 74 73 74
32 78 74 78 77 76 77
33 80 77 79 80 78 79
34 82 80 80 81 80 82
35 85 82 82 84 83 84
36 86 85 84 87 85 87
37 88 87 87 87 88 89
38 90 90 90 90 90 90

Some interesting observations, Chelsea and Liverpool have the most difficult start and they will still be on same rate if they have 4 less points than Manchester city by match#10. Also City can be 4 points behind us come match#30 and still they be with us by end. From match# 21 to match# 30, Chelsea is expected to gather 27 points, while City can do with 20.

Weekly Predictions

Now, if you guys agree with this approach, I can publish following table every week and update the predictions(target table) with the points of matches already happened.

Match week #1 Chelsea Man City Man United Arsenal Liverpool Tottenham
Target for this round 2 3 3 3 2 2
Points actually scored 3 3 0 3 3 3
Final Tally predictions 91 90 87 90 90 91

With this table we will know where we stand after every round as promised at the start of this article.

Let me know your comments about the quality of this article and or any differences in approach. I have the base excel with me which have all this information about this and previous season in a analyzable format. Email me if you want to have a look at it.

This FanPost was contributed by a member of the community and was not subject to any sort of approval process. It does not necessarily reflect the opinions held by the editors of this site.