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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
Elliott Jackson

Supercomputer predicts Manchester United's Europa League chances after quarter-final draw

Manchester United have their eyes on the Europa League trophy after reaching the quarter-final stage.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer 's side secured their place in the last eight after beating AC Milan 1-0 in the San Siro on Thursday night, thanks to a second-half winner from Paul Pogba.

After edging past Milan, a quarter-final clash with Granada is next up for United, with the La Liga club having knocked out Molde to reach the last eight.

Should United beat Granada, they will take on Ajax or Roma in the semi-finals.

United reached the semi-final of the competition last season, but were ultimately knocked out by Sevilla.

A supercomputer has predicted their chances of lifting the trophy this time around, with Solskjaer's side given a 31 per cent chance of winning the tournament.

FiveThirtyEight's data model has United down as comfortable favourites to win the Europa League, with Arsenal ranked as second-favourites with a 19 per cent likelihood of being victorious.

Arsenal are given a huge 73 per cent chance of beating Slavia Prague and reaching the semi-final and then a 50 per cent likelihood of reaching the final.

How it works

FiveThirtyEight predict the outcome for tournaments by using SPI ratings, which the website says are their best estimate of a team's overall strength.

Each club is given an attacking rating that represents the number of goals they are expected to score against an average side, and a defensive rating to represent the number of goals they would concede.

Those ratings produce an overall SPI rating, which represents the percentage of points a team would be expected to take on average from a game. Those ratings are then compared to a potential opposition's rating to simulate the outcome of a match.

From that, it is possible to simulate the outcome of an entire tournament.

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