West Bromwich Albion Story

Away from the bright lights of London, childish bargaining in Manchester or the blind alleys of Liverpool, a true feel good story is developing.

It's about West Bromwich Albion.

Well, not exactly these guys. Younger ones.

When you lay a bet against the spread on a football or a basketball match you calculate in the handicaps the bookie gave you for each team. So the concept of handicapping should be familiar.  

Goal difference is a telling statistic. You can not, in a long run, fake your ability to score. Or to defend yourself from it.

When we calculate this ability as a goal margin per game ( handicap ) we get the numbers which show us that, for example, last season Chelsea was 1,87 goals favorite in each of their games. Manchester Utd was good for 1,57, Arsenal 1,11, Liverpool 0,68 and so on. Biggest underdog was Wigan with -1,11 goals per game. WBA 's number in this calculation is from their previous EPL season ( -0,82 ). That shouldn't be much off.

And for the sake of better understanding, remember these two facts.

First, the value of the victory in the EPL last season was 2,6 goals scored and 

Second, the best team has the easiest schedule for the season , by definition, since they don't have to play against themselves. 

In other words, it's not that Chelsea really is a 1,87 goals ( almost a win ) favorite from the start, no. Add opponents value in the equation too. Against Manchester Utd they would be 1,87 – 1,57 = 0,3 goals favorite. And when we translate that for the season ( sum of all handicaps for each team equals 0 ) their strength of schedule was 0 – 1,87 = - 1,87 goals. A complimentary win. As if they needed one.

And here is a table of what WBA has done so far.

 

What we see in first row is that Chelsea was so heavy favorite in the opener that that was almost an automatic win. They scored six for the good measure. True goal difference (True GD) reduces/increases the number of goals conceded for the amount of handicap. And it shows that, all other things being equal ( I'm omitting home field advantage, form, injuries...), Baggies conceded 3 “real” goals. That was their only negative performance so far.

So, what gives?

Sum of the handicaps so far (blue number) show that they were 12 goals underdogs and that they successfully parred with 10 . Expressed in wins, they are nearly 4 wins above expectations.

All of this gets it's true shape in comparison with the second table. These are the teams that had positive goal difference per game ratio last season and their true handicap/strength of schedule in first 9 weeks of this season.

30 (thirty) goals difference in handicap between WBA and Chelsea so far.

Last column shows us how well each team played so far.

Is Manchester Utd under performing or what? That's a literal half-ass job.

Chelsea is at 22 % above expectation, Arsenal at 12%. Liverpool is already lost for the season, I'm afraid. Aston Villa's percentage is a consequence of the Newcastle game blunder. They are not that bad.

And WBA is playing on the rocket fuel.

Is it sustainable? No, it's not. But when you over perform, you better do it in the thick of your schedule when it matters the most, and that is exactly what Di Matteo's squad is doing right now. With this stretch, they've probably secured their spot in Premiership for the next season.

Go Baggies!