My last couple of posts have primarily focussed on shot-level data to try and tell a story about how the team's in the Belgian Jupiler Pro League (JPL) have performed. Another way of assessing team's performances is to compare bookmaker's predictions to actual performance. Using this approach, I look here at which team is Belgium's most "in-form" team, and which team is performing above expectations...
Simon Gleave recently wrote a post investigating whether or not Liverpool is the most "in-form" team in the English Premier League. In his post he linked to an explanation of a simple methodology to use to compare expected points (from bookmakers' odds) to actual points (won by teams). I use his model here with Belgian JPL data from soccerway.com and bookmakers' odds from odds portal.
To begin, let's look at the form table of the JPL over the last 10 matches - which is the last 10 full gameweeks at the time of writing, so gameweek 18 to gameweek 27.
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Belgian JPL form last 10 matches GW 18-27 (@SatThereThinkin)
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Team
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Actual Points
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Standard
Liège
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23
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Club Brugge
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20
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Anderlecht
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20
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Kortrijk
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19
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Gent
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19
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Charleroi
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18
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Genk
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15
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Lokeren
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13
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Mechelen
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12
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Waregem
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12
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Cercle Brugge
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11
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Oostende
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10
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Westerlo
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9
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Waasland Beveren
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8
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Lierse
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8
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Mouscron-Péruwelz
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3
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As you can see from the table, Standard Liège is the most "in-form" team in the Belgian JPL having taken 23 points from a possible 30 over the past 10 matches. Standard's form over gameweeks 18-27 is a whole 3 points better than their rivals Club Brugge and Anderlecht. It is perhaps unsurprising to most of you that Standard, Club Brugge and Anderlecht are the top of the form table in the Belgian JPL as they are, at least in recent years, the top 3 clubs.
Looking at the form-table another way, however, tells us another story. What I want to do is "control" for the strength of the opposition the teams face over the past 10 matches. What I mean by this is, let's say Standard played 10 minnows over the past 10 matches (ie avoided Club Brugge & Anderlecht), their 23 points from a possible 30 seems less impressive [for the record, Standard played Anderlecht in Gameweek 23 and won 2-0].
So, to control for strength of the opposition over the past 10 matches, I use bookmakers' odds as a proxy. The methodology is explained at the end but for now, I used bookmakers' odds to provide an "expected points" table. I then compared the expected points over the last 10 matches to the actual (or, observed) points over the last 10 matches to see who is "outperforming" bookmakers' expectations, which is roughly to say 'overperforming' (or, the teams in green) :
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Belgian Jupiler
Pro League GW 18-27 – expected vs actual
points last 10 matches (@SatThereThinkin)
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Team
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Actual Points
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Expected Points
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Difference
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Genk
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15
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8.24
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6.76
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Standard Liège
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23
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16.48
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6.52
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Charleroi
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18
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14.03
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3.97
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Kortrijk
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19
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15.07
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3.93
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Gent
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19
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17.06
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1.94
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Cercle Brugge
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11
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9.43
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1.57
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Club Brugge
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20
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19.99
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0.01
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Anderlecht
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20
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20.33
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-0.33
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Oostende
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10
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10.86
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-0.86
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Westerlo
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9
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9.99
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-0.99
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Mechelen
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12
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13.52
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-1.52
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Waasland Beveren
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8
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9.73
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-1.73
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Lierse
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8
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10.15
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-2.15
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Waregem
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12
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14.20
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-2.20
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Lokeren
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13
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15.24
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-2.24
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Mouscron-Péruwelz
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3
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9.68
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-6.68
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The table shows Genk - managed by Alex McLeish - as the team performing most above expectations. Genk is currently battling to remain in the top-6 competing closely with 3rd most overperforming team Charleroi. This will be an interesting battle to watch. Interestingly, the 2nd most overperforming team is Standard, adding weight to the initial claim they are performing better than expected. Standard seemed to be underperforming for quite a while and were towards the lower end of the top-6 for much of the season. They have, however, picked-up some form recently and look to be in hot pursuit of top-2; Anderlecht and Club Brugge. Anderlecht have underperformed over the past 10 games, but not by much. Club Brugge have pretty much played to expectation.
I will try to return to this as much as possible to try and tell a bigger story. For now, it seems Standard are deserving of their ascendance in the table. It also feels like Genk - on recent form - deserve to propel themselves into the top 6.
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Methodology explained:
1) Taking the example of the Genk Anderlecht game in GW 27 (which ended 1-0 Anderlecht), I took the odds of 3.3 home win, 3.31 draw and 2.18 away win. I put these all as the denominator under 1 to get a %age chance of the odds.
2) The odds then became 30% Genk win, 30% draw and 46% Anderlecht win - the 6% being the bookmakers' profit. So, I had to divide all these odds by 1.06 (or, 106%) to ensure the odds added up to 1.
3) In so doing the odds became 28.5% Genk win, 28.4% draw and 43.1% Anderlecht win.
4) For expected points: Genk (3*0.285) + 0.284 = 1.1 points; and, Anderlecht (3*0.431) + 0.284 = 1.6 points, ie Anderlecht favourites to win.
