EPL 23/24 PREDICTIONS REVIEW
If you have 100% belief in my picks you can just stop reading here and we can all pretend I got 60 points (3 for every correct place) and go home. Unfortunately for me, as they say, ‘the game is not played on paper’. I did manage to get a few exactly right and many others within the same ballpark but a few teams of Brentford, Manchester United and West Ham were way off. The rest I am more or less happy with my process although I may have just over or under valued a certain factor. It has also allowed me to see what factors matter most and what new factors I can add or weight differently for next seasons predictions.
I would recommend going back to read my predictions article and even having it up side by side as you go through. This will save me repeating why I had a certain team where I can just say what made my prediction right or wrong.
The three factors of manager change, squad change and change in European football commitments did very well as predictors for league finish but some of the ones I got wrong show me another factor or two may be needed for next season. For example I was so confident (see cocky) in my picks that I said other than transfers that happened post game one I thought my table accounted for things like injuries and manager turnover.
If I’ve just used which manager is in the dugout to inform how well they do it doesn’t make much sense to then say I can account for there being a change. For example Glasner replacing Hodgson. I also can of course not account for injuries as every season each team is affected differently by them. In the first article I very clearly draw attention to the fact that less injuries equals less rotation and a more settled team equals more points. It is not completely random as certain players are more injury prone and certain clubs/managers training and therapy reduces likelihood of injuries but for me to say my predictions accounted for injuries was wrong. Manchester and Newcastle United for example both could have easily finished a place or two higher if not for the amount of injuries they suffered.
