PremierLeaguePredictor2020-20211stQuarterReview

November18,2020

2020-2021PLP1stQuarterReview

We are just about a quarter of theway through the 2020-21 Premier Leagueseason,soit’stimeformetoreleasethe1stQuarterReview!Thepurposeofthisreviewistosummarizethefirst8weeksofthePremierLeaguePredictorseasonandtoprovidesomehelpfulinformationtothosewhohaven’tbeenabletopaycloseattentiontothePremierLeaguematchessofarthisyear. HerearethePLPStandingsafterthefirst8weeksoftheseason:

Ziaisofftoagreatstart,andleadsthePLPstandingssofarwithatotalscoreof2,320pointson49correctpicksinhisfirstPLPseason!Wehavehad3playerssitinfirstplacesofarthisyear,butZiahasheldontothetopspotforthelast4weeks.

Wehavehadsomegreatscoringtokickoffthe2020-21season.Lastyear,ourleader afterWeek 8 had only 1,991 points - but Zia, Eli, Dylan, and Sarut are all outpacinglastyear’shighestscoresofarthisyear! Thereisatightmidfieldgroupforming,with4ththrough10thplaceseparatedbyonly381points.Withthisinmind,weknowthatthereisgoingtobealotofmovementinthestandingsstilltocomeinthefinal30weeksoftheseason. TakeSarutandDylanasacoupleofexamplessofar:InWeek4,Sarutwassittingin10thplace,butsincethenhehasjumped7positionsinjust2weeksandcurrentlysitsin4thplace.Dylanhasimprovedfrom6thplaceupto3rdplaceinthelast3weekswhileaveraging305pointsperweek! Here is the PLPWeek-by-Week StandingsGraph after the first 8weeks of theseason:

PremierLeagueTable

Afterthefirst8matchweeks,and78totalmatches,hereisthecurrentPremierLeagueTable:

Ithinkthatwehavehadanexcitingstarttothe2020-21PremierLeagueseason.Ihavebeenparticularly impressedbysomeoftheteamsthathaverisentothetopofthe table–andsomeof thevictorieshavebeendrivenby incrediblyexciting football.ThecurrentTop6–LeicesterCity,Spurs, Liverpool,Southampton,Chelsea,andAstonVilla–areallplayingexhilarating,attacking,high-scoringfootball.

Liverpool has struggled to find its dominant form from last season, butchampions continue to findways to score pointswhen they aren’t playing their bestfootball. And even though Liverpool hasn’t seemed on top of their game so far thisseason,theyarestillsittingjustonepointoffthetopspot. ManchesterCity,atitlefavoritethisseason,andcertainlythetopchallengerforthe title against Liverpool, has struggled so far this season. They currently sit in 10thplacewithamatchinhand. Obviously,oneofthetopstoriesoftheseasonsofar ishowthecoronavirus isimpacting the Premier League. The virus’s impact stretches to many aspects of thegame.First,thelackoffans.Ofcourse,havingfansinstadiumsiswhatthegameisallabout,butweneed toask thequestion:does the lackof fanshavean impacton theresults of the matches? Based on the 2019-20 Premier League results, here are thedifferences in expected home wins, away wins, and draws:

Theinitialansweris “yes”. After78matches,therehavebeen10extra“awaywins” thanwhat is expected during the course of the season. The lack of fans in thestadiumsiscertainlyhavinganimpactonhometeams.Manchester United has lost 3matchesatOldTraffordsofarthisseason,includinga6-1losstoTottenhamHotspur. Second,thecoronavirusisimpactingthehealth of the players. So far this season, 52players have tested positive for thecoronavirus, including Mo Salah. If thenumberscontinuetogrow,whoknowshowthePremier League will have to react. Thecoronavirus has impacted the scheduling forthe season, causing shorter breaks betweenmatches and fixture congestion that leads tofatigue and injury. Currently, there are 99Premier League players out injured – when itcomes down to it, a championship team willlikelybeahealthyteam!

My(subjective)1stQuarterPremierLeagueAwards

Matchofthe1stQuarter:Liverpool:4,LeedsUnited:3(Week1) The season got off to a rocking start between the 2019-20 champions of thePremier League and the 2019-20 Championshipwinners. And Liverpool showed theywereuptothechallengethattheyknewtheyweregoingtofaceeachweekasthetitlefavorites.LeedsalsoshowedthattheycouldattackandscoreagainstthebestPremierLeaguedefenses,eveniftheywereanewlypromotedside. Checkoutthehighlightshere:https://youtu.be/myfO8IXi0uE

Upsetofthe1stQuarter:AstonVilla:7,Liverpool:2(Week4) AstonVilladidn’t justbeat the reigningPremierLeaguechampions, theyput7goalspastLiverpool.OllieWatkinsannouncedhispresenceinthePremierLeaguewithhisfirsthattrickoftheseason,andhecurrentlyhas6goalsontheyear. Checkoutthehighlightshere:https://youtu.be/Ew6_twTL3zg

Teamofthe1stQuarter:Southampton

SincethePremierLeagueresumedplayduring“ProjectRestart” in Juneof thisyear,Southamptonhaswon9ofitslast16matches,includingvictoriesthisseasonoverEvertonandAstonVilla,anda3-3drawagainstChelsea.Southamptonwillhavetroublekeepingupthisformduringthe2ndQuarter,however,becausetheirstarscorerDannyIngsrecentlyunderwentkneesurgerytorepairligamentdamage.

SurpriseTeamofthe1stQuarter:AstonVilla AstonVillacurrentlysitsin6thplaceinthePremierLeagueandhas5winsoutoftheirfirst7matches.Their star player, JackGrealish, is playing great football andhasled his team to victories over Liverpool, Arsenal, and Leicester City. Their season hasbeenhighlightedbyahuge7-2victoryoverthechampionsLiverpool–themostgoalseverscoredagainstdefendingchampions. AstonVillahasarelativelysoftschedule inthe2ndQuarteroftheseasonandwillhopetokeepuptheirstrongform.

Managerofthe1stQuarter:JoséMourinho(TottenhamHotspur) When JoséMourinhowasappointedasmanagerofTottenhamHotspur,manypeople were uncertain if he still had what it took to lead a turnaround at a majorPremierLeagueclub.Afterayearinchargeoftheclub,andwithsupportshowntohimbyownerDanielLevyduringthetransferwindow,JoséhasledTottenhamHotspurtoastrongstarttothisseason,wheretheycurrentlysit in2ndplacewithqualitywinsoverManchester United and Southampton. Spurs’ season will all hinge on the next fewweeks,whentheyfacethefollowingteamsinorder:ManchesterCity,Chelsea,Arsenal,CrystalPalace,Liverpool,LeicesterCity,andWolves.

Playerofthe1stQuarter:HarryKane Matches:8,Goals:7,Assists:8

Harry Kane is a player that people either love or they hate. However, hisperformance so far this season cannot be argued. Kane has embraced a new role atSpurs,atrue#10position,andhassparkedapowerfulattackforJoseMourinho’ssquad.HehasdroppedinsomebeautifulpassesforassiststoSon,andcontinuestobeaforcein frontof goal. Currently,Kane leads thePremier Leaguewith8assists and sitsonegoalbehindtheleagueleaderswith7goals.

2ndQuarterOutlook Asweheadintothe2ndquarteroftheseason,weareabouttoheadintowhatsomepeopleconsiderthemostexcitingstretchofthePremierLeagueseason.InWeek10,we enter the famous Premier League “holiday period”where the Premier Leaguemanages to squeeze 8Matchweeks between Thanksgiving and the New Year. FromNovember28ththroughJanuary3rd,aperiodof37days,therewillbeatotalofatleast80 Premier League matches. (This is obviously all dependent on the coronavirusoutbreak and possible shutdowns.) Here are some of the matches that I wanted tohighlightoverthenext9weeks:

Week9: TottenhamHotspurvManchesterCity WolvesvSouthampton LiverpoolvLeicesterCity Week10: ArsenalvWolves ChelseavTottenhamHotspur SouthamptonvManchesterUnited Week11: TottenhamHotspurvArsenal LiverpoolvWolves Week12: EvertonvChelsea ManchesterUnitedvManchesterCity AstonVillavWolves Week13: ArsenalvSouthampton LeicesterCityvEverton LiverpoolvTottenhamHotspur Week14: CrystalPalacevLiverpool SouthamptonvManchesterCity ChelseavWestHamUnited TottenhamHotspurvLeicesterCity

Week15: WolvesvTottenhamHotspur ArsenalvChelsea LeicesterCityvManchesterUnited AstonVillavCrystalPalace Week16: CrystalPalacevLeicesterCity ManchesterUnitedvWolves EvertonvManchesterCity ChelseavAstonVilla Week17: ManchesterUnitedvAstonVilla ChelseavManchesterCity SouthamptonvLiverpool

PremierLeaguePredictorCompetitions

The 1st Quarter of the Premier League season saw us complete the first tworoundsofthePremierLeaguePredictorCup.ThePLPCuptakesabreakuntilWeek19,whenitreturnswiththefirst“eliminationmatches”ofthetournament.Thefullbrackethasbeenupdatedonthewebsite,somakesurethatyoucheckouttheprogressonline! Asthe2ndQuarterofthePremierLeagueseasonbegins,weturnourattentiontothe PLPHoliday Tournament. TheHoliday Tournamentwasmy first side-competitionidea, because I wanted to create an additional competition during the hectic run ofmatchesduringthePremierLeagueholidayperiod. TheseedingforthePLPHolidayTournamentwillbefinalizedafterWeek9,andthetournamentbeginsWeek10andrunsthroughWeek17.Checkoutthetournamentbracketandrulesonthewebsite!

PremierLeaguePredictorPrizes

The2020-21PLPseasonhasbroughtsomenewchangestothegame.First,weincreased the entry fee to $40.00, and everyone has paid. Second, the 2020-21 PLPseasonnowconsistsoffourdifferentcompetitions.AlongwiththePLP38-weekregularseason, three tournaments are spread out over the course of the season. Eachcompetition will have different prizes for the winners – which brings us to anotherchangetothePLPgame:prizedistribution.HereistheofficialprizeannouncementforthedifferentcompetitionsandtheoverallPLPgame: Thetotalprizepoolforthe2020-21PLPseasonis$520.Prizeswillbeawardedforallcompetitionsasdescribedbelow.

RegularSeason: Champion:$1602ndPlace:$80 3rdPlace:$40

PLPCup: Champion:$60Runner-up:$20

HolidayTournament: Champion:$60Runner-up:$20

End-of-SeasonPlayoffs: Champion:$60Runner-up:$20

OtherPrizes:Additional,“non-monetary”prizesmaybeannouncedorawardedatalatertime.Inpreviousseason,theseprizeshavebeenpostersorbooksthatIhavebeenabletofindrelatedtothePremierLeague. Prize“Cap”:Ihavedecidedtoimplementa“cap”ontotalprizemoneythatoneperson can win during a single Premier League Predictor season. The 2020-21 prizemoneycapis$280–whichisequalto7xtheentryfee.Intheeventthatapersonwinsmore than the prizemoney cap, the additional fundswill be distributed to the top 4finishers in the PLP Regular Season. There are numerous reasons for theimplementationoftheprizemoneycap:

1. First, doing research on other fantasy sports leagues, the usual 1stprize is not more than 4x or 5x the entry fee. Other calculationsincludedanaverage1stprizeof40%-50%ofthetotalprizepool.ThePLPprizemoneycapisequalto7xtheentryfeeand54%ofthetotalprizepool,whichisstillgreaterthanmostfantasysportsleagues.

2. Second, although the PLP Regular Season and the PLP Cup, HolidayTournament, and PLP End-of-Season Playoffs are all separatecompetitions, there is a clear overlap in the results of thecompetitionsbecausethePLPRegularSeasonrunsconcurrentlytoallofthePLPtournaments.Becausethecompetitionsrunconcurrently,thismeansthatscoringwellinonecompetitionautomaticallymeanspositive results in the concurrent competition. This means thatparticipantswhoperformwellintheRegularSeasonwillperformwellinthetournaments,andviceversa. This leadstomanyofthesameparticipantsbeingincontentionformultipleprizes.

3. Finally,Iwanttoencourageparticipationthroughoutalong38-week

season. Iwanttorewardpositiveresultsforpeoplethroughouttheseason and I do not want to discourage participation for thoseparticipantswhomaybestrugglingatsomepointduringtheseason.Byensuringthatprizemoneyisavailabletobespreadbetweenafewdifferentparticipants, thiswillpromotecompetition throughout thisfullseason,andfutureseasons.

Conclusion

Thiswrapsup thePLP1stQuarterReview! Hopefully itprovides somegreaterinsighton the first8weeksof thePremierLeagueseason.And,hopefully itgivesyousomenewinformationthathelpsyoumakepicksduringthe2ndQuarteroftheseasonand on. I am looking forward to the Holiday Tournament and to giving out the firstprizesoftheseason! If forsomereasontheseason ispostponedordelayedduetothecoronavirus,wewillplantopostponethePLPseasontocorrespondwiththePremierLeagueseason.Thishappenedlastseasonandwemadeitthroughtotheend.Iftherearecancellationsorsomethingmoreextreme,wewillhavetofigureoutwhatwearedoingatthattime. Atthistime,wecontinueon.Asalways,letmeknowifyouhaveanyquestionsorsuggestionstomakethegamebetter.Thanksforyourparticipationsofarthisseason,andgoodluck! -Tyler