Premier League season preview: predictions, stats and betting angles

The Premier League season is upon football fans once again. To the many who simply cannot get enough of the sport, this means the same intricate blend of physical theatre, larger-than-life characters, tactics and teamwork. But to those who also happen to follow the sport more casually, there are several interesting storylines to examine before the season’s first whistle.

Early-season form and fixture patterns

Opening weekend box office results are notorious for being utterly unpredictable, even for people who should know better. The Premier League’s unpredictable opening fixtures offer genuine analytical value for those who want to try UK sports betting, since early-season form gaps between promoted clubs and established top-half sides tend to produce odds that underestimate scoreline variance. Using Opta data from the past few seasons, analysis reveals that promoted teams typically ship an average of two more goals per match in their first four games compared to the rest of the season. It seems teams’ tactical preparation takes a few games to catch up with their pre-season fitness.

New season, same unpredictability: this year’s fixture list looks to heap lots of newly-promoted clubs up against the best of the big six before October, which should serve up even more volatility than usual.

Title contenders and squad depth

Three clubs seem to possess the most impressive squads for the new season according to the squad metrics compiled by CIES football research. Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool are the three teams at the top of the respective metrics (positional coverage and average age of the squad). Arsenal’s recruitment this summer has plugged a pretty obvious gap in their defence in the form of Mathieu Debuchy and Callum Chambers.

After examining the official figures over the past few seasons for every major club in England, analysts have pulled out some compelling facts that set the Blues apart, mainly in an unsuccessful manner. Ultimately, a seemingly bottomless pit to buy players has not translated to significant positions on the Premier League table.

Statistical angles for the full season

Using advanced match statistics such as expected goals, xG, means that the expected goals differential may be a more accurate indicator of how a team might do over the course of the season than the actual number of goals scored over 38 games. There were last season four clubs whose ‘true’ finishing position was more than six places away from where actual positions landed.

Indeed, official Premier League statistics show that set-piece goals now account for around 30 per cent of all goals scored; a fact that no doubt excites teams with mobile, technically-gifted centre halves alike.

What the numbers actually tell us

While prediction models and league-wide statistics provide some information about what might happen in the coming year, they don’t completely remove all uncertainty. The value of a season preview is in figuring out just where the model’s uncertainty is highest, not in predicting who will win 105 games before the Reds even open their season.