Six Part Review

Six Part Review

If you read my previous article, you will know that the pursuit of data driven excellence has entered the sixth week of the Premier League season and with the 10 latest fixtures now in the history books, it is time to see how I fared last weekend.

Once again it was another round of gut instinct, as we edge ever closer to the start of this season’s data driven football predictions and see if our good friend “PremBot” can lead us on the path to financial glory.

However, we are not quite there and once again, it was time to see how both Social Media and I fared not only gets the best of the English top flight, but also the bookmakers themselves in a test of guts and glory.

DID WE WIN?

While the only way that we can do that, is by tacking stock of my predictions first and if we casrt our minds back a week, these are the 10 picks that I opted for and their actual outcomes

Aston Villa – N
Manchester City – N
Fulham/Palace Draw – N
Manchester United/Chelsea Draw – Y
Liverpool – Y
Everton – N
Wolves – N
Arsenal – N
Brighton – N
Tottenham – Y

Just three out of 10 got over the line last weekend, nothing short of absolutely rotten and with that I have a feeling that my advantage at the top of the table will be very quickly ceded. While in order to confirm this unfortunate turn of events, here is how Social Media fared.

Aston Villa – N
Manchester City – N
Crystal Palace – Y
Manchester United/Chelsea Draw – Y
Liverpool – Y
Everton – N
Wolves – N
Arsenal/Leicester Draw – N
Brighton/West Brom Draw – N
Tottenham – Y

A good but not great five out of 10 instead, which means both me and Social Media’s gut instinct’s are at the same levels after six weeks of this new Premier League season, while for extra contect lets see how many winners the bookmakers actually called last time out.

Today, 23 Oct			1	X	2	B’s
19:00	Aston Villa – Leeds		+112	+275	+235	12
Tomorrow, 24 Oct			1	X	2	B’s
11:30	West Ham – Manchester City		+629	+422	-238	12
14:00	Fulham – Crystal Palace		+175	+220	+177	12
16:30	Manchester Utd – Chelsea		+141	+266	+191	12
19:00	Liverpool – Sheffield Utd		-385	+544	+1091	12
25 Oct 2020			1	X	2	B’s
13:00	Southampton – Everton		+177	+248	+158	12
15:30	Wolves – Newcastle		-127	+254	+421	12
18:15	Arsenal – Leicester		-106	+277	+297	12
26 Oct 2020			1	X	2	B’s
16:30	Brighton – West Brom		-132	+297	+363	12
19:00	Burnley – Tottenham		+448	+309	-154	12

Then again the bookmakers did not do all that much better either and with only two out of 10 winners being nailed on last weekend (Liverpool and Tottenham), they are now being left behind in the early season predictive race.

Gut Instinct – 51.7% correct (30/58)
Social Media – 51.7% correct (30/58)
Bookmakers – 46.5% correct (27/58)

As explained before though, the bookies predictions do come with the caveat that they are not picking draws, so there figure is 27 out of 58 wins correct in fairness, while both mine and Social Media suggestions do allow for the draw.

This means that the process is a little skewed in the current top two’s favour but if we are brutally honest, nobody is pulling up any trees at the moment and hopefully our fortunes change next weekend.

What is interesting to see though, is that the bookmakers are now getting less than five wins correct per week on average and this asks questions of just how much of a guide price we should be putting the pre-match odds. You would have to say not as much as first thought.

Anyhow that is a quick summary of how Week 6 of the season fared, now it is time to lay the groundwork for the following weekend and with that in mind…..

Happy punting and thanks for reading.

(THESE ARE NOT TIPS PER SE, THESE ARE JUST DATA DRIVEN FOOTBALL PREDICTIONS IN A PURE TEST AND LEARN MODELLING CAPACITY)