Strange play off odds

[dylanisabaddog 6,131]

The odds to make the play offs are a little strange but I doubt there's been much wagered so far. We are actually 5/1 on Bet365

 

Edited February 9 by dylanisabaddog

[Branston Pickle 4,145]

Actually, given our run in (we’ve already played 5 of those sides home and away) it is definitely in our hands - not long back I recall people pointing out (some rather too gleefully) that we hadn’t beaten any side in the top 6.  Now that’s changed, but we have tended to fare better against the lower sides.

Edited February 9 by Branston Pickle

[canarydan23 4,758]

I suspect when you get to around 5th-12th, a lot of the playoff odds are driven by fan confidence and them thinking, "We've got this" and chucking some money at their favourite bookie. I'd wager that there aren't as many Norwich fans doing that as fans of the other clubs in that list, despite our recent upturn.

[repman 752]

One of the main factors in that will be our xG is far worse than all those sides listed. In terms of xG difference we rank 13th as it stands. The sides above us in that table but not on that list are Watford, Bristol C and Blackburn (and Leicester but that's for a different reason). Blackburn may have better underlying numbers but their actual position means they're out of it, Bristol City are on 38 points so would also have a lot of catching up to do. Watford are only 3 points behind us so I'd guess they're not too far off us in terms of odds. 

[Nexus_Canary 1,206]

17 minutes ago, repman said:

One of the main factors in that will be our xG is far worse than all those sides listed. In terms of xG difference we rank 13th as it stands. The sides above us in that table but not on that list are Watford, Bristol C and Blackburn (and Leicester but that's for a different reason). Blackburn may have better underlying numbers but their actual position means they're out of it, Bristol City are on 38 points so would also have a lot of catching up to do. Watford are only 3 points behind us so I'd guess they're not too far off us in terms of odds. 

xG....

 

Did the ball go in the net?
Yes or No.

Here is your algorithm. 

[dylanisabaddog 6,131]

47 minutes ago, repman said:

One of the main factors in that will be our xG is far worse than all those sides listed. In terms of xG difference we rank 13th as it stands. The sides above us in that table but not on that list are Watford, Bristol C and Blackburn (and Leicester but that's for a different reason). Blackburn may have better underlying numbers but their actual position means they're out of it, Bristol City are on 38 points so would also have a lot of catching up to do. Watford are only 3 points behind us so I'd guess they're not too far off us in terms of odds. 

Blackburn are above us in the xG table. Well, that's that then, we may as well give up. 

You may have expected Blackburn to score more goals than us but strangely they have scored less. 

Last 10 games. Please God don't bet on Blackburn 

Edited February 9 by dylanisabaddog

[repman 752]

31 minutes ago, dylanisabaddog said:

Blackburn are above us in the xG table. Well, that's that then, we may as well give up. 

You may have expected Blackburn to score more goals than us but strangely they have scored less. 

Last 10 games. Please God don't bet on Blackburn 

Well yeah that was my point, Blackburn's underlying numbers might be better than ours but the fact they're so far away means that their chance is gone, hence them not appearing on the odds. Their actual performance vs expected is probably not helped by having 2 keepers who statistically grade out as the worst and 8th worst at stopping shots in the division, whereas Gunn is currently ranked 5th best (we might even be out-performing them even better if it weren't for Long, who in an albeit small sample would be rank worst in the division).

Of the 3 I mentioned, none of them are that much better than us. Thought I'd post the table just to illustrate the gap in underlying numbers. There's a big gap between what Middlesbrough and Sunderland have put up vs the other chasing sides, though it's probably fair to point out the number of losses they have (not unlike us) where the fact they were behind could mean they were creating chances and not converting.

[shefcanary 2,950]

The Top four are the top four in both your tables @repman but it still won't silence the doubters.

[Robert N. LiM 6,273]

17 minutes ago, repman said:

 

This table has gone some way to answering my question about 'why don't we feel like we're a play-off chasing team?'

[Cowboy 238]

15 hours ago, Robert N. LiM said:

This table has gone some way to answering my question about 'why don't we feel like we're a play-off chasing team?'

It's by far the most meaningful of the stats tables except the actual table, of course.

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 4,614]

16 hours ago, Robert N. LiM said:

This table has gone some way to answering my question about 'why don't we feel like we're a play-off chasing team?'

And also explains why Middlesbrough are 10/3 to make the playoffs and why I saw Preston quoted at 22/1 the other day, despite Boro being a point behind with a game in hand.

[Nuff Said 5,958]

16 hours ago, Robert N. LiM said:

This table has gone some way to answering my question about 'why don't we feel like we're a play-off chasing team?'

I would argue it’s misleading though as it uses the whole of the season. If you look at the form table over the last 8, 6 and 4 games, we are 7th, 6th and 3rd respectively. That feels like a play-off chasing team - with crucial momentum, especially when you look at the relative league position of our opponents. Which is why a good performance and result today is critical, both because of where QPR are in the table, so we can measure if we can win against all comers, and because it’s away where we’ve not been as successful.
 

I think for those who don’t feel like we’re genuine contenders, it’s more emotional than rational, based on our recent history. We’ve had expectations crushed severely so many times in the past few year that it’s hard to have hope.  
 

I would be interested to hear from the stattos though <half the board groans>, I seem to remember that things like xG for recent games suggest we are over-performing.

[Robert N. LiM 6,273]

52 minutes ago, Nuff Said said:

I would argue it’s misleading though as it uses the whole of the season. If you look at the form table over the last 8, 6 and 4 games, we are 7th, 6th and 3rd respectively. That feels like a play-off chasing team - with crucial momentum, especially when you look at the relative league position of our opponents. Which is why a good performance and result today is critical, both because of where QPR are in the table, so we can measure if we can win against all comers, and because it’s away where we’ve not been as successful

Agree with all of that. 

 

53 minutes ago, Nuff Said said:

I think for those who don’t feel like we’re genuine contenders, it’s more emotional than rational, based on our recent history. We’ve had expectations crushed severely so many times in the past few year that it’s hard to have hope

Yes and no. I feel like we're very good at getting promotion. Most seasons when we're in contention we end up going up, don't we? It's the PL seasons where we've had our hopes dashed — and I can't say mine were that high in those seasons anyway. 

55 minutes ago, Nuff Said said:

 

I would be interested to hear from the stattos though <half the board groans>, I seem to remember that things like xG for recent games suggest we are over-performing

Let them groan. Seems completely reasonable to me to be emotionally invested in the game, celebrate the win, then a few days later take a more detached, hopefully objective view. Sensible use of stats, taking what's useful and acknowledging their limitations, is just part of that.

[Worthy Nigelton 1,299]

A week or so ago we were 33/1 to go up. I thought about doing it - wish I would have. 

[littleyellowbirdie 3,138]

21 hours ago, Nexus_Canary said:

xG....

 

Did the ball go in the net?
Yes or No.

Here is your algorithm. 

Therein lies the flaw in this approach as a predictive algorithm.

[Nexus_Canary 1,206]

28 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Therein lies the flaw in this approach as a predictive algorithm.

Oh behave 

[repman 752]

4 hours ago, Nuff Said said:

I would argue it’s misleading though as it uses the whole of the season. If you look at the form table over the last 8, 6 and 4 games, we are 7th, 6th and 3rd respectively. That feels like a play-off chasing team - with crucial momentum, especially when you look at the relative league position of our opponents. Which is why a good performance and result today is critical, both because of where QPR are in the table, so we can measure if we can win against all comers, and because it’s away where we’ve not been as successful.
 

I think for those who don’t feel like we’re genuine contenders, it’s more emotional than rational, based on our recent history. We’ve had expectations crushed severely so many times in the past few year that it’s hard to have hope.  
 

I would be interested to hear from the stattos though <half the board groans>, I seem to remember that things like xG for recent games suggest we are over-performing.

To your last point, our 5 game xG at the minute comes to 5.9 for and 7.5 against. That's -1.6 over the 5 games which comes out as roughly -0.3 p90, which is worse than over the course of the season so far but I don't think that necessarily tells the whole story.

The xG for our last games (just from the basic numbers on fbref) are:

Southampton 0.8 - 2.5
Hull 1.4 - 1.0
West Brom 1.7 - 1.5
Leeds 0.5 - 1.5
Coventry 1.5 - 1.0

So we've 'won' the xG battle 3 times which isn't all that bad. I think those numbers do a good job of showing the difference between the top sides in the league and the chasing pack. Once you consider the influx of quality we have in the side now compared to October time you could probably say we might now have enough to leapfrog the other contenders.

That being said, while I think we're now in a better place than before, I'm not convinced we're actually all that good yet. It feels like we could still be prone to another bad run, of which you'd say one would kill our playoff hopes. Conversely we might be good enough to sneak into the play offs, those last 2 spots will probably go to the sides who manage to hold their nerve the longest.

[Robert N. LiM 6,273]

51 minutes ago, repman said:

Conversely we might be good enough to sneak into the play offs, those last 2 spots will probably go to the sides who manage to hold their nerve the longest.

It will be interesting to see if our much-derided old lags prove their worth in that respect in the run-in. Am sure I remember reading somewhere that almost all our summer signings have recently been involved in a successful promotion campaign, and when you add the guys who've been here a while (Hanley, Gibson, Dimi, Kenny, Onel, even Lungi), that's a lot of players who know from experience how to get the job done.

[Nuff Said 5,958]

56 minutes ago, repman said:

Southampton 0.8 - 2.5
Hull 1.4 - 1.0
West Brom 1.7 - 1.5
Leeds 0.5 - 1.5
Coventry 1.5 - 1.0

Possibly a stupid question, but are those two numbers home and away teams (so at home to Coventry, our xG was 1.5, theirs was 1.0)?

[Robert N. LiM 6,273]

7 minutes ago, Nuff Said said:

Possibly a stupid question, but are those two numbers home and away teams (so at home to Coventry, our xG was 1.5, theirs was 1.0)?

Pretty sure in all games it's us first, regardless of whether it's home or away. Can't see that we 'won' the xG battle at Leeds, for instance

[repman 752]

13 minutes ago, Nuff Said said:

Possibly a stupid question, but are those two numbers home and away teams (so at home to Coventry, our xG was 1.5, theirs was 1.0)?

Yeah sorry they're xG and xGA, so us first every time.

[Jimmy Raggatip 66]

Odds for markets like this won't be driven by weight of money

The bookies can model a range of outcomes based on remaining fixtures and current points totals, and the odds will reflect the genuine probabilities of teams landing within the playoff spots