My Favourite Muse

I'm in a bit of a hurry this morning so I'm just going to link to one story - "The Fink Tank"'s predictions for the season:

by far the best way of predicting results this season is to look at the past two seasons and then add in as little of your instincts as your personality permits.

The Fink Tank team takes two years of goals and shots on goal and then for each club weights them so that the most recent goals and shots count more. This allows each club to be ranked and the probability of results in each game to be calculated. Allowance is made for the teams' performance to vary across the season, then the season is simulated thousands and thousands of times.The outcome is a table giving the probability of each team finishing in each position and a table representing their average position. The two together show broadly what to expect and how much variability there is.

Numbers to look out for? Manchester United are clear favourites to win the title, although naturally Chelsea are hot on their heels. Once more it would be a mistake either to write Arsenal off or to overestimate Liverpool.

So, if one takes away the bias then, unlike thousands of pundits around the media believe, we are favourites for the title, as we are at the bookies. Why is just about every pundit choosing Chelsea? Bias - pure and simple...