The Premier League season should be nearing its end, with just a few games remaining in the campaign.
We should now be on the home straight and the finish line should be coming into view.
But instead, top flight football - and all other professional football in England - is currently suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak.
As such, we find ourselves in early April and none of us have any clear idea of when the 2019/20 Premier League campaign will reach its conclusion.
On Friday, the season was suspended “indefinitely”, following the Premier League’s latest stakeholders meeting, with it being confirmed that matches would only resume once it is “safe to do so,” with the coronavirus outbreak showing no signs of slowing down any time soon.
It is now almost one month since the Premier League’s last game was played, with Leicester City hammering Aston Villa 4-0 at the King Power Stadium.
The enforced break came as a blow to everyone, especially Liverpool, who are in need of just two more victories to mathematically secure their first-ever Premier League title.
At the other end of the table, there were several teams fighting tooth and nail to secure their Premier League status, prior to the season hitting the buffers.
Currently, just four points separate Aston Villa in 19th, who have a game in-hand over their closest rivals, and Brighton & Hove Albion in 15th, meaning the fight for survival could go right down to the wire.
But with the brakes firmly on the season for the foreseeable future, data and statistical specialists, Opta, decided to crunch the numbers and simulate how the rest of the season could map out.
To get a final league table, Opta had to carry out five different tasks to reach a conclusion.
Firstly, they had to make an estimation for the outcome of each and every one of the Premier League’s remaining fixtures, which is based on a team’s attacking and defensive qualities, which are based on four years of historic restyle, though more weighting is given to more recent fixtures.
The next step is to take into account the quality of the opposition that a team scores or concedes against and rewards them accordingly. To do this, Opta used goal predictions from the Poisson distribution with the two teams’ attacking and defending qualities as inputs.
Finally, they ran the simulation 10,000 times to estimate the chances of each team finishing in each league position in the table.
Their findings, unsurprisingly, discovered that Liverpool, who have won all but two of their league matches this season, would be crowned Premier League champions, securing the title with a record points tally of 101, with their nearest challengers, Manchester City, finishing in second place on 80 points.
Leicester City and Chelsea completed the top four, amassing 67 and 63 points respectively, meaning the top four positions remained the same as what they currently are.
Though they were able to close the gap on Chelsea, eventually finishing just two points behind Frank Lampard’s side, Manchester United were unable to secure themselves a top four berth.
Just behind United were Tottenham Hotspur, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Arsenal and Sheffield United, all of whom were separated by just three points.
As for the bottom of the table, it was the current three sides that currently occupy the relegation places - Norwich City, Aston Villa and AFC Bournemouth - that slipped into the Championship, with Watford surviving on goal-difference.
The final Premier League table based on Opta’s simulation:
1st: Liverpool - 101 points
2nd: Manchester City - 80 points
3rd: Leicester City - 67 points
4th: Chelsea - 63 points
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5th: Manchester United - 61 points
6th: Tottenham Hotspur - 58 points
7th: Wolverhampton Wanderers - 56 points
8th: Arsenal - 56 points
9th: Sheffield United - 55 points
10th: Everton - 50 points
11th: Burnley - 49 points
12th: Crystal Palace - 49 points
13th: Newcastle United - 46 points
14th: Southampton - 44 points
15th: West Ham United - 39 points
16th: Brighton & Hove Albion - 37 points
17th: Watford - 36 points
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18th: Bournemouth - 36 points
19th: Aston Villa - 32 points
20th: Norwich City - 29 points
