I’m very sorry to Charlie and Mitch for this getting up late. I’m having one of those weeks both personally and professionally. I’m sure you all understand. We are 50/78 for the year so far, which is solid, and 5/10 last week.

Matchday 11

@analyticsLaLiga

Barcelona are heavy underdogs to Rayo. I’m just staring at that aghast. It’s far and away the boldest prediction the algorithm has made yet, and Charlie communicated to me his misgivings about it. I personally love it. Barcelona is badly managed and haven’t played great football. Rayo is off to a great start back in the top flight. Let’s see it happen. We are massive favorites over Cadiz, which is a match that is ongoing as I am getting this posted. We also just went down a goal. I’m not going to say anything more about that because venting my frustration in that way wouldn’t be healthy for anyone.

At time of posting, they’re already off to a 1-0 start to the week correctly picking Alaves to beat Elche. Getafe, as utterly helpless as they are, are the biggest underdogs this week in their match with Granada. It’s also interesting to me to see Atleti in as narrow a prediction as they are.

My personal theory that Charlie or Mitch could comment more on is that as the season ebbs and flows, there are going to be times when better teams hit a tough run of fixtures that, over the five game rolling average, injure their xG expectations, thus causing the algorithm to throw odd upset picks. It’s probably a defect in the system, but frankly I like seeing upsets predicted so to me it makes even better theater.

Thoughts?