This year we are providing a tiebreaker so we have a singular winner.
Rules for the game are easy, order the list below from top to bottom as your projected finishing order for the English Premier League. Scoring will be the difference from actual to your projected for each team divided by 2. Use the exact wordings of the team names below
LIV
MNC
MNU
CHE
LEI
WHU
NEW
CRY
BHA
SOU
WOL
EVE
LEE
BRE
ASV
TOT
ARS
FUL
NOF
BOU
Picks need to be in by Friday, 2:59 PM Eastern.
Since this contest is about minimizing the variance over the entire pool, the tiebreaker is not going to be winner only. Here are the tiebreakers:
Most exact predictions - does not matter where they finish, it is the number of precise team and place in the standings.
Smallest largest difference - If your worst projection was 6 places off and the other person was 7, you win.
Number of teams picked for relegation that actually got relegated
Number of teams picked for Champions League spots that qualified for Champions League based on standings performance only.
Number of teams picked for Europa League spots that qualified for Europa League based on standings performance only. That is a guarantee of 1 spot and could be 3 depending on other competitions.
Now, start at champion and work down until there is a difference.
As a comparison to last year, MNC mean was 1.30 with Chelsea second at 2.60, Liverpool 3.20 and MNU fourth at 3.30. Watford had a higher mean at 19.50 but had the same min rating at 17 and was most common pick compared to the field being split on Bournemouth and Forest. Fulham likely would have been a relegation pick except for the IPD top 10 selection for them.
Now that’s a prediction that Leicester goes down. BHA and WHU straddle relegation while Everton moves to the top half despite losing their best player. If this pick wins, it will likely win by a comfortable margin.
Anything can happen in any given season (who of us picked Leicester for first a few years back?) I like to throw in a few non-consensus predictions as well. Newcastle finished strongly last year and with the billions behind them should improve this year so I moved them up a few notches from 538’s prediction and a few others downwards. Statistically it would be safest to use 538’s ordering but that wouldn’t be much fun.