2015/2016 Premier League Fixtures Announced: Who's Heading Down? (Relegation)

And so I come to my final post in this series. After discussions around the title race and the battle for a Champions League spot, I now come to the one that often ends up being the least predictable: relegation. Last year was no exception, with Newcastle coming perilously close to the drop after a simply horrific run of form towards the end of the season. However, it's my job in these posts to attempt to predict them based solely on the fixtures, so let's give it a go.

Before we start, I'm going to do a quick run through my choices for the sides that will be contesting the bottom three places. In my opinion, it all comes down to six teams. As at least one relegated side has been relegated for all bar two seasons this century, I'll include all three of the newly promoted sides, as well as others I believe to be vulnerable to relegation this year, namely Sunderland, Leicester and West Brom. You may have noticed that I've not included either Newcastle or Aston Villa, both of whom only narrowly evaded relegation last season. However, Aston Villa's upturn in form towards the back end of the season, along with the law of averages that suggests that Newcastle simply can't collapse in the same way they did last season, means that I don't believe either will be seriously fighting the drop this year.

So, now we've got our constituents, what do the fixtures say? Starting with the opening five, we can see an interesting variety of difficulties when it comes to fixtures. For instance, compare the opening fixtures for West Brom - Manchester City (h), Watford (a), Chelsea (h), Stoke (a) and Southampton (h) - with Sunderland's - Leicester (a), Norwich (h), Swansea (h), Aston Villa (a), Tottenham (h). Though the Black Cats do have some difficult games, there is nothing like the two top sides in the league and a difficult away trip to Stoke! Leicester's games are not too dissimilar to Sunderland's, with the starter against the North East club, before games at West Ham, at home to Spurs, away at Bournemouth and at home to Aston Villa.

Meanwhile, our new Premier League sides all have mediocre starts, with both challenging and easier games in their opening five. Watford have away games at Everton and Manchester City, as well as hosting West Brom, Southampton and Swansea. Norwich have a trip to St Mary's to contend with, in addition to hosting Stoke. Finally, Bournemouth's first season in the top flight sees them travel to Anfield, Norwich and West Ham, as well as hosting Leicester and Aston Villa.

In my opinion, the order is relatively simple - West Brom, Watford, Norwich, Bournemouth, Leicester, Sunderland.

As we move towards Christmas, the fixtures get brutal, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the relegation battle. For example, Leicester may be lucky to get three points out of their run of Chelsea (h), Everton (a), Liverpool (a), Manchester City (h), Bournemouth (h), while Watford may also struggle with their Sunderland (a), Liverpool (h), Chelsea (a), Tottenham (h), Manchester City (h). To be fair, no-one has a particularly easy ride, with West Brom perhaps the best placed to take advantage, but even they have to navigate tricky trips to Liverpool and Swansea, while hosting Newcastle, Stoke and Bournemouth.

Bournemouth may also see Christmas as a key moment, with an opportunity to claim some points. Starting with a home tie with Manchester United, they then travel to West Brom before hosting Crystal Palace. A trip to the Emirates follows, before going to Leicester on New Years' Day. Meanwhile, Norwich start their games with Everton at home and Manchester United and Spurs away, before home ties against Aston Villa and Southampton. Finally, Sunderland have three horrible games sandwiched by winnable ones. Starting with a home game against Watford, the Black Cats then travel to both of last year's top two, Chelsea and Manchester City, before hosting Liverpool. They finish the festive period with a game at home to Aston Villa, which could provide some respite.

This order is considerably more difficult, with many of the teams suffering during this period. Nevertheless, this is my order: Leicester, Watford, Sunderland, Norwich, Bournemouth, West Brom.

In the latter stages of the season, every point is critical. Therefore, the final five games are absolutely critical, and can ruin an entire year. Again, like the Christmas period, some clubs haven't been fortunate at all. In particular, I feel for Leicester, Bournemouth and Norwich. After a horrible Christmas period for the Foxes, they end their season with home ties against both West Ham and Swansea, before a horrible triple header of Manchester United (a), Everton (h) and Chelsea (a). Similarly, Norwich start with two, albeit slightly easier, home ties against Sunderland and Watford, before travelling to Arsenal, hosting Manchester United and making the trip to Everton. In contrast, Bournemouth start with horrible home ties against Liverpool and Chelsea, before travelling to Everton, hosting West Brom and then a killer tie at Manchester United on the final day.

Outside of those three, all have a couple of tricky ties, with a few games in which they can recoup some points. Sunderland have both Arsenal and Chelsea at home, as well as the tricky trip to Stoke, but they also have games against both Norwich and Watford. Similarly, West Brom have home games against West Ham and Liverpool, as well as a trip to Tottenham, but also playing Watford and Bournemouth. Finally, Watford probably have the easiest task, playing many of the sides around them, namely West Brom, Norwich and Sunderland, as well as a home tie with Aston Villa and a trip to Liverpool.

If the easiest is easy, the rest is fairly tricky, but this is the order that I have picked for the final five: Bournemouth, Leicester, Norwich, Sunderland, West Brom, Watford.

So, when all is said and done, who is set for the drop (according to the fixtures)? Well, if we add up the points, with six for the hardest and one for the easiest in each of the three periods, we can make a final table. Should there be even points, whoever has ended up at the highest end in terms of difficulty in any of the three periods will be considered at a disadvantage. With this in mind, here is the final order, as it would be in the table:

15th - Sunderland (8 points)
16th - West Brom (9 points)
17th - Norwich (11 points - top spot 3rd)
18th - Watford (11 points - top spot 2nd)
19th - Bournemouth (11 points - top spot 1st)
20th - Leicester (13 points)

FIFA 14 Realism Series: Can Video Games Mirror Reality?

                           This week, I will be doing a three-part mini series, celebrating and analysing the release of the most successful and popular football game series of all time. I am, of course, speaking of the immortal FIFA series. A franchise that has generated upwards of £3.7 billion since its inception in 1993, the game has made its way into the hearts (and homes) of football fans and gamers across the country. Last year's edition of the game has seen over 4.5 billion goals scored, and a staggering average of 13.3 million per day. The hotly anticipated release of their '14' version, which hit the shelves Friday 27th September, sold over 2.5 million copies on the day of release. Having got my copy on the day, I have decided to see whether FIFA 14 can be considered to have achieved its primary objective: to be realistic. For Part 1 click here.

                             For those of you who follow me on Twitter (@amhaywood), you will have seen my feed dominated with my newest project. I have decided to use the current Premier League fixtures to try and assess the realism of the game. Having already created a predictions spreadsheet, which I advertised here, I have the full 388 games being played in the Premier League this season readily available, along with the method of calculating the accuracy, and even comparing it to predictions sent in for my competition. This should give me some indication of just how realistic FIFA is compared to real life, as in the early weeks I will have something to compare it to immediately, whilst in later weeks I will be able to see if real life then mirrors the game. In this post, I will be explaining exactly how I am going about this test, and assessing the test's flaws etc, before examining my early season data to see how true to life it really is.

                                As I explained in the paragraph above, I will be using FIFA 14 to predict the Barclays Premier League scores from the season 2013/2014. Using the 'Kick Off' mode on the game, I will play as neither team, and allow the game to play out as though I were watching it on TV. I will then record the scores of each fixture into my pre-designed prediction spreadsheet (where it will automatically score it in line with the rules for my prediction competition: 1 for a correct result (HW, AW, D) and 2 for a correct scoreline), where it will then calculate the table as FIFA would predict it to happen. This way we could see an accurate representation of exactly how FIFA thinks the season will pan out. I will also be recording the goalscorers, so that we can see who FIFA believes the Golden Boot will go to this season.

                                 I have consulted the Internet in order to find the most realistic difficulty level to play the simulation at. The vast majority of comments have suggested that somewhere around the 'World Class' to 'Legendary' levels would be the most realistic in terms of gameplay and speed of the game. Having tested out both of these levels in numerous practice games, I have concluded that Legendary is the level that I will use for my test, as it tends to produce more chances and a more exciting game to watch. In terms of the half length, for obvious reasons (being too boring and too many goals), I have decided against playing the realistic 45 minutes a half, instead choosing six minute halves. Once again, the practice games suggest that this is the most entertaining game length. Other than that, I will allow FIFA to randomly select weather etc-all I will do is ensure that the time of year is correct, thereby reducing the chances of snow in a match in May!

                                  Whilst I will do my all to make sure that conditions are as realistic as possible, meaning that the test is as fair as I can make it, I acknowledge that there are flaws with my idea. Arguably the biggest one surrounds the selection of realistic squads. As I am planning to predict results with FIFA before they actually happen, there is no way that I can be expected to field accurate sides for every Premier League club. Therefore, what I have decided is this: I will put out the strongest possible team I can for each side, by ratings alone, ensuring that I am being as fair to all sides as possible. It does, however, mean that a mid-season injury crisis will not be picked up, nor will any January transfers. However, should there be significant transfer activity in the New Year window, I may revisit the idea of replaying the games with the updated squads, taking the results up to January 1st as given. If anyone has any suggestions as to the strongest side for their club, please feel free to leave a comment or send me an email to itsmorethanjustagameblog@gmail.com, and I will do my best to accomodate you.

                                   I did also have initial worries about the setup of the game, and whether the simulation would produce competitive matches, or whether the ball would just be stuck in the middle of the pitch for the 90 minutes. Certainly, on the last few FIFA games, whenever you try and play a simulated game, the score would normally end up a boring 0-0 draw, with little in the way of goalmouth action. Another worry was that due to the natural ranking of the teams, we would just see a table skewed in favour of those with a better rating. Both of these fears were allieviated just two games into my simulated season. My first game was the lunchtime kick-off between Liverpool and Stoke at Anfield. Under normal circumstances, a banker home win. In line with my rules, I even had Luis Suarez in the Liverpool line up, despite his 8 match ban for biting Branislav Ivanovic. Despite all of this, and early Reds dominance, a quick-fire double from Peter Crouch put the visitors 2-0 up at half time. Though Liverpool rallied, with Suarez scoring within 10 minutes of the restart, they couldn't find a way through the Potters' rearguard. An entertaining, and surprising start to the season.

                                      Better was yet to come, however. In the very next match, Arsenal took on Aston Villa at the Emirates. For anyone who remembers the fixture, it was a well-deserved, but shocking 3-1 away win. Whilst FIFA may have got the result wrong, the match I saw was no less entertaining. In a first half packed with goals, Arsenal raced into a 3-0 lead after just 15 minutes. My worries about the highly rated clubs beginning to peak, Villa fought back, dragging themselves back to 3-2 by 35 minutes. This was perfectly set up for the second half, until Giroud scored on the stroke of half time to give the Gunners that cushion back. After the breathless first half, the second was bound to be a little more leisurely, and that it was. A late goal from Agbonlahor set up a nervous finish, but Arsenal hung on. Whilst FIFA had got the opening two results completely wrong, there was enough evidence to suggest that this would be an incredibly intriguing experiment.

                                        As I write this, I have currently completed the first three weeks of Premier League action, and thus far, FIFA has accurately predicted either the result or the score on 50% of matches. Whilst this may sound poor, it is broadly comparable to the percentage scores that myself, and everyone else who entered the prediction competition has. This suggests that FIFA is no more well informed than your average fan, but there is certainly a level of reliability to their results. I think I will be continuing this series with irregular blog posts throughout the season, updating you all on the progress made and the state of the FIFA table as it lies. I will also mention noteworthy games or derbies.  After three games, Chelsea lead the league from Manchester City and Stoke, with Tottenham currently sitting in the final Champions League spot. Sunderland currently sit 8th, a full 12 places above reality, with Manchester United slotted in beneath them. Though in FIFA, United lost to Chelsea and drew with Liverpool, the points tally is identical to that of the real team after three games. Towards the bottom, Liverpool have had a dreadful start, picking up just 1 point from their opening games. The relegation zone currently consists of the three promoted sides, with Cardiff the only side yet to get off the mark in the FIFA Premier League. In terms of individual prizes, it is Chelsea's Samuel Eto'o that has taken his chances early, with 5 goals scored in the three games. A host of players follow him on an average of a goal a game, but that will be one that I will be interested to follow.

                                         Whilst there may well be inaccuracies and flaws in this experiment, it is certainly one I am looking forward to undertaking and developing as the season goes on. As for how realistic the game is based on the early results, it is difficult to say. I would have to conclude that the early result suggest that the realism is perhaps not quite as good as the EA developers would have wanted, but 50% isn't bad. The early season has given me a few cracking matches so far, and I look forward to watching, and sharing, a few more in the near future.