Did anyone see Liverpool’s Premier League title triumph coming? We didn’t.
Not one of the 30 BBC pundits we asked to pick the top-flight’s top four before the season started predicted that the Reds would be champions – the closest were Stephen Warnock and Fara Williams, who both said Arne Slot’s side would finish second.
But they were not alone in getting it wrong.
Opta’s ‘supercomputer’ can tell you your team’s exact chances of winning any competition at any given time.
It is actually a complex algorithm that uses a model based on betting market odds and the sports analytics company’s own ‘Power Rankings’, which are calculated using past results.
Last summer, before a ball was kicked, it simulated the outcome of all 380 Premier League games 10,000 times and calculated that Manchester City had an 82.2% chance of a fifth-straight title, with Liverpool down in third.
In fairness to Opta’s algorithm, it did choose all four teams that finished in the actual top four and, position-wise, it was correct about two of them – Arsenal in second and Chelsea fourth.
Williams went with a hunch rather than crunching any data, but still matched that pretty impressive feat.
She was one of five BBC pundits to include all of the top-four teams in their predictions and, although she went for Arsenal to win the title, she had City in third, one place above Chelsea.
Matt Upson, Glenn Murray, Chris Waddle and Ashley Williams did the same, but with only one team, Chelsea, in their correct position.
