By David Butler
On the 28th of August I began recording Sky Sports Pundit and ex-Premier League Footballer Paul Merson’s predictions for EPL fixtures. These predictions are usually published by Sky Sports the day before EPL matches. The first five entries that followed his predictions can be found here, here, here, here and here.
So how did the 'Magic Man' fare this season?
Merse predicted the outcome of 379 fixtures*. He successfully predicted the right result 155 times, the correct score 38 times and has been incorrect on 186 occasions. As per the past entries, Merson's predictions are compared to the output of a random number generator and can be seen below.
Also included is Merson's Premier League Table which represents what the 2014-2015 EPL would look in light of his estimations. Merse rightly predicted Chelsea to be champions, got three out of four Champions League teams correct and suggested Burnley would be relegated.
He does however overestimate the performance of high performing teams and underestimate the weaker ones. I've written about the psychology behind this in previous entries.
For Merson, Arsenal and Tottenham are interesting cases. The results will not be unsurprising for fans. Merson thought that Arsenal would be 2nd and overestimated his former club's total by 14 points. In contrast, he thought that Tottenham would be 11th and underestimated the North London club's total by 17 points.
On the 28th of August I began recording Sky Sports Pundit and ex-Premier League Footballer Paul Merson’s predictions for EPL fixtures. These predictions are usually published by Sky Sports the day before EPL matches. The first five entries that followed his predictions can be found here, here, here, here and here.
So how did the 'Magic Man' fare this season?
Merse predicted the outcome of 379 fixtures*. He successfully predicted the right result 155 times, the correct score 38 times and has been incorrect on 186 occasions. As per the past entries, Merson's predictions are compared to the output of a random number generator and can be seen below.
Also included is Merson's Premier League Table which represents what the 2014-2015 EPL would look in light of his estimations. Merse rightly predicted Chelsea to be champions, got three out of four Champions League teams correct and suggested Burnley would be relegated.
He does however overestimate the performance of high performing teams and underestimate the weaker ones. I've written about the psychology behind this in previous entries.
For Merson, Arsenal and Tottenham are interesting cases. The results will not be unsurprising for fans. Merson thought that Arsenal would be 2nd and overestimated his former club's total by 14 points. In contrast, he thought that Tottenham would be 11th and underestimated the North London club's total by 17 points.
Randomness - Final Update
Paul's Pie Chart - Final Update
*There was no observation for one fixture – given that this was Arsenal at home to Sunderland, an Arsenal win was assumed for the purposes of the league table. The score line of 3-0 was predicted by Merson's Sky Sports News colleague Charlie Nicholas.
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