Modelling marries opinion and creates what? Premier League 2014/15: Prediction Table

Simon Gleave put out a request the other day for any model-based Premier league predictions (or indeed fan or journo opinion guesses) so armed with a spreadsheet load of last season's statistics, I set about building a model and got predicting.

The model was based on identifying & compiling a number of factors that predicted finishing position (eg. the relationship between goals scored & league rank and others), deriving their relative effectiveness, then blending them together proportionally to create one master figure based on last year's numbers.

To this heady mix, I then added or subtracted a percentage based on 3 factors: managerial change, personnel change and participation in Europe.  This bit was, well, subjective.

At this point Man City were projected for 160 unit points so a degree of levelling was incorporated (based on historical points totals) to allow the prediction to actually look like a functioning and viable league table.

And, hey presto:

1	Man City			90
2	Chelsea			81
3	Man Utd			76
4	Arsenal			75
5	Liverpool			70
6	Tottenham			67
7	Everton			61
8	Newcastle			60
9	Swansea			57
10	WBA			46
11	Aston Villa			42
12	Southampton			40
13	Sunderland			40
14	Stoke			40
15	QPR			36
16	Crystal Palace			33
17	West Ham			32
18	Hull City			31
19	Leicester			31
20	Burnley			24

At this point, I should probably state that I'm not wildly enamoured with the model's results, they're too dull!
On the positive side of things, a large part of this resembles the betting market for the league so, I must be in good company if I can model something that looks similar to the pro-odds compilers.  But, for me there's not much fun in that.

So by way of a rider, I thought i'd add that personal bias (and knowledge!) predicts a far less average season for Tottenham, i'm not as convinced as the model that Man Utd will emerge so freely from their slump and I think Sunderland are better than I've predicted.  I personally think it'll be tighter at the top too, the model loves Man City and isn't too enthusiastic about Arsenal.  My view is that they will be a lot closer with Chelsea right beside them.  Also, pity Palace: Pulis leaving has taken them from looking up the table to very firmly looking down.

Anyway: it was a fun project & i'll be interested to look back on it in 9 months time.

Thanks to Simon for the impetus.

James @ The Big Ripple