Sport

Rugby World Cup #1 – Who will win in 2019?

September 19, 2019 By Nigel

Augustin Pichot, vice-president of World Rugby, may not like its ranking system but ahead of the 2019 Rugby World Cup (Men’s), I have been able to use rankings to correctly predict 80% of international matches since 2017. For the world cup that starts this week, I used a dynamic ranking model to predict all matches and it shows that 4 countries cannot be separated for the trophy so we are in for some very exciting matches!

Trophy Winners #1 – England Men’s Club Football 1889 to 2019

August 10, 2019 By Nigel

The 2019/20 football season is now underway in England and my team Newcastle Utd play their first match tomorrow. As a long suffering toon fan, it has been 50 years since we last won a trophy and I am not expecting that drought to end this season. For supporters of other teams, your life will have been more fortunate but if you can’t remember the last time your team won a trophy then why not download my spreadsheet listing all trophy winners since 1889 to find out.

EPL 2017/18 #5 – My Prediction of the Final League Table – Round 36

April 28, 2018 By Nigel

With only 3 or 4 games to go for the teams of the Premier League, most of the season’s excitement has dissipated. Man City have wrapped up the title, the top 7 who will be playing in Europe next season is more or less settled and the former 10-team dogfight for relegation has resolved itself with a 4 point gap between the bottom 3 and the rest. Probably, the only remaining uncertainties are who will take 4th place (Spurs or Chelsea) and will Southampton escape relegation at the expense of Swansea?

6 Nations #12 – Who will win in 2018? – Week 5

March 17, 2018 By Nigel

We now know the answer to who will win the 2018 6 Nations Championship. Ireland won the title with a match to spare after England failure against France resulted in my second forecasting error of the championship. There is still much to play for though in the last week with the main question being whether England do to Ireland what Ireland did to England last year and stop them from winning a Grand Slam. Whilst I am cheering on England, it is St. Patricks Day and I do have some Irish blood in me so part of me does wish Ireland well.

EPL 2017/18 #2 – My Prediction of the Final League Table – Round 29

March 3, 2018 By Nigel

With 10 games to go, the 2018 EPL is now entering its final quarter and supporters of all teams are starting to wonder where their team will finish in the league. As a Newcastle United supporter, my team is stuck right in the middle of one of the tightest relegation battles in living memory. At the other end of the table, my wife’s team Spurs are almost certainly out of the running for the title but Champions League qualification is definitely in their sights. To set expectations, I have used a statistical method known as Poisson modelling to predict the final league table come May 13th and I will update this post after every round of games between now and then so please bookmark this page.

Sporting GOATs #1 – English football clubs

September 9, 2017 By Nigel

My team Newcastle United are also known as the Magpies but how much of a GOAT are they? In recent years, this acronym has become popular as a shorthand for Greatest Of All Time. Given that the Magpies have not won a trophy in the 40+ years that I have supported them, I know they are not the number 1 GOAT in English football but where would they sit in a GOAT table?

Ranking tables are extremely common in sport and sport analytics as they are easily understood by fans. If I want to compile a ranking of all English football clubs, there are two decisions I have to make:

Over what time period will the data come from? (ERA)
On what measure will I rank the clubs? (METRIC)

In this post I will use 3 eras and 3 metrics to creating 9 GOAT tables in all. Read on to find out which club is #1 GOAT! [Read more…] about Sporting GOATs #1 – English football clubs

EPL 2017/18 #1 – What are you expecting for your team this season?

August 12, 2017 By Nigel

The 2017/18 English Premier League (EPL) kicked off yesterday with Arsenal beating Hull 4-3. Tomorrow, my team Newcastle United will be playing my wife’s team Tottenham Hotspur so marital harmony could be in short supply! Be that as it may, what should fans of the Magpies and Spurs be expecting this season? Newcastle are a recently promoted team whilst Spurs were runners up last season Is there a way to set realistic expectations for the 2017/18 season?

6 Nations #7 – Should there be promotion & relegation?

March 23, 2017 By Nigel

Throughout the 6 Nations this year (and in previous years) there has been a constant debate about whether promotion and relegation should be introduced. A lot of people have stated that Georgia have earned the right to play in the 6 Nations and that Italy have failed to make any progress over the 18 seasons they have been in the 6 Nations. Actually had promotion & relegation been in place this season, Italy would have been relegated and Romania would have been promoted after winning the Rugby Europe Championship with a narrow 8-7 win over Georgia in the last round. This win ended Georgia’s 6 year winning streak.

6 Nations #6 – How did the rankings do in 2017?

March 23, 2017 By Nigel

Ireland’s win over England brought the 2017 6 Nations to a close. England were crowned champions but were not able to top it with back to back grand slams. Over the last few weeks, I have been using the World Rugby Rankings to predict the outcome of the matches and now it is time to see how they performed.