Magpies lead the race for 5th... Sort of

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Greetings, friends. That was a spicy little weekend in both the Premier League and the English Championship. Today I’m going to discuss what the most accurate forecasts in the world tell us about which teams are mostly likely to end up in the final CL spots in the Premier League. But first…

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A funny thing happens when you are a football commentator/fan and have access to probabilities - the most likely future becomes clear. Especially late in the season, producing the handicaps for the final matches and then looking at the probable points totals for each team can lead to some really interesting insights.

We now know England are getting at least five Champions League places next season. That could become six or even seven if English teams were to win the CL and EL, but I’m not going to risk the ire of the teams still in the competition by jinxing them.

For the moment, assume it’s just the five places every team from Forest to Villa are scrapping for, meaning two teams will be on the outside looking in.

We’re going to start by discounting Villa a little. They have a tricky run-in with both Newcastle and City on the cards, as well as Fulham, Bournemouth, Man United, and whatever Spurs are pretending to be right now. On 54 points with the worst goal difference, they would need to continue their very hot league form and do the unexpected to wind up with a league table CL place.

It’s not impossible — more unlikely things have already happened this season (*camera pans toward Nottingham*), but it is reasonably improbable.

After that, things become very interesting. Using a combination of the current gambling lines for the next two rounds of matches and some projected ones for the rest, I have Newcastle and Manchester City ending on basically the same points, with Forest one point behind them and Chelsea FOUR points in back of that.

Chelsea’s draw with Ipswich this weekend was unlikely (they win that match 67% of the time — which somehow feels ABSURDLY LOW for a match where they took 34 shots!), but it was also fairly disastrous to their CL chances. They basically blew all margin for error left in the schedule by taking 1 point vs 3 in that game.

Now all is not lost… Chelsea have matches against both Newcastle AND Forest as part of their run-in, meaning they still control most of their own destiny. The issue for the probabilistic approach is that both of those matches are away. And the other issue is that Chelsea’s expected goal difference has collapsed from Third Best Team in the PL during the middle section of the season, down to Europa League Contender for most of the last two months, and it’s the attack wot dunnit.

Another thing that surprised me a little when doing this analysis was how punchy the numbers were on City (even with me adjusting them in range of where I think they should be versus recent history).

The 5-2 against Palace this weekend was stompy, with City notching 3.5 expected goals, and reversing an 0-2 deficit in the blink of an eye. The schedule has some challenges (Villa, Bournemouth, Fulham), but also squishy elements in Everton and Southampton away, and recently stout Wolves in Manchester.

Newcastle’s win at the weekend was almost expected given how inept United have been this season, but it was also fairly resounding. Tonali’s fluke to earn three points against Brentford looms large now, as does the 4-3 against Forest seemingly ages ago. But the biggest thing Newcastle have going for them that Chelsea have struggled so hard with is that the Magpies Take Care of Business against the weak teams. Their run-in is hard, but the game in hand plus the home matches against Ipswich, Everton, and Palace should be enough to see them through?

The last team on this list is Forest, and what will actually happen there is guesswork. They face the ghost of Spurs this weekend, plus Brentford, Leicester, and Chelsea at home on the final day of the season, with Palace and West Ham away smooshed in there for good measure. They have the weakest xgD of any contender now, but are still capable of fluking just enough points in these last six matches to keep them ahead of Chelsea.

Probably?

The fallout from Chelsea finishing out of the CL spots that run five deep, with this squad, and that spending will be interesting. We’re 32 games into the PL season and I don’t think Maresca has answered any of the questions I had about him when he took over. Arguably things have become less clear as the season has progressed, which is the opposite of what you want as a decision-maker, but maybe not that dissimilar to what happened last year with Pochettino.

I don’t have a dog in this fight — I’m mostly thrilled the end of the season has interesting storylines, and that we’re about to get an EPIC tie between Barcelona and PSG in the next round of the Champions League.

If I were a Chelsea fan, I’d probably find it hard to unclench my jaw after the weekend. On the other hand, maybe it’s just confirmation that the promoted manager who took four points off them this season (Kieran McKenna) is the one they really want running the team next year anyway.

—TK

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