EFL League 2 Week 6 Update

Week 6 is now in the books, so let’s see how the model held up. For a refresher, here’s the expected goals we generated last week for Week 6. The favored teams are in bold.

EFL_L2_Pred %>%
  filter(Wk == 6)
   Wk       team1          team2      expg1     expg2
1   6   Bradford City        Walsall 1.5263992 0.4786214
2   6     Exeter City      FG Rovers 2.1071433 2.0331495
3   6 Oldham Athletic         Barrow 0.5359346 1.2877314
4   6  Mansfield Town      Harrogate 1.0020996 4.0052352
5   6       Stevenage   Swindon Town 0.5977011 1.7943734
6   6       Port Vale       Rochdale 0.4294908 0.3306406
7   6 Tranmere Rovers Hartlepool Utd 0.2696606 1.0023774
8   6     Northampton Scunthorpe Utd 1.4775007 0.8982173
9   6  Colchester Utd  Sutton United 0.7700193 0.4400964
10  6 Carlisle United   Salford City 1.0891702 0.9228864
11  6  Bristol Rovers   Crawley Town 0.7005184 1.9067104
12  6  Newport County  Leyton Orient 0.3434896 2.0386526

Here’s the results for Week 6:

        Home          HomeGoals       Away    AwayGoals
1    Bradford City         1        Walsall         1
2      Exeter City         0      FG Rovers         0
3  Oldham Athletic         0         Barrow         3
4   Mansfield Town          1        Harrogate       3
5        Stevenage         1     Swindon Town       1
6      Northampton         2    Scunthorpe Utd      0
7        Port Vale         2       Rochdale         3
8  Tranmere Rovers         1    Hartlepool Utd      0
9   Colchester Utd        NA    Sutton United      NA
10 Carlisle United         2    Salford City        1
11  Newport County         2    Leyton Orient       2
12  Bristol Rovers         1    Crawley Town         0

The model only predicted 4 outcomes correctly…not great. Some teams exceeded their expected goals total, and some failed to live up to expectations.

Here’s updated attack and defense ratings for each team after Week 6, still using the default model.

Going into Week 6 it was FG Rovers that had the highest attack rating. Now Harrogate leads the table in attack rating with a 0.82. We can also see that only 5 teams in League 2 have positive attacking and defensive ratings. Right now they appear to be the most consistent and I’ll track that as the season progresses.

For Week 7’s matches, I’ll run the expected goals model and a win/loss probability model.

Here’s Week 7’s expected goals:

   Week       team1           team2     expg1     expg2
1     7      Harrogate  Newport County 3.2384019 0.7911888
2     7         Barrow  Colchester Utd 0.8259142 0.5957292
3     7 Hartlepool Utd  Bristol Rovers 2.7177073 0.8165772
4     7      FG Rovers     Northampton 1.2990317 1.2725970
5     7   Salford City   Bradford City 1.5832205 1.4184628
6     7        Walsall  Mansfield Town 0.9182043 1.2327451
7     7   Swindon Town       Port Vale 0.8636511 0.6369436
8     7  Leyton Orient Oldham Athletic 2.9617286 0.4014131
9     7  Sutton United       Stevenage 0.8573164 1.3136180
10    7   Crawley Town Carlisle United 0.6289711 1.5058894
11    7 Scunthorpe Utd     Exeter City 0.4261316 0.8567660
12    7       Rochdale Tranmere Rovers 0.6335677 0.3413748

Here’s Week 7’s win/loss probability. In the data frame, “p1” is team1’s win probability, “pd” is the probability of a draw, and “p2” is team2’s win probability.

Week   team1           team2        p1         pd         p2
7      Harrogate  Newport County 0.8406572 0.10230971 0.05703306
7         Barrow  Colchester Utd 0.3809036 0.37547852 0.24361788
7 Hartlepool Utd  Bristol Rovers 0.7731559 0.14006616 0.08677790
7      FG Rovers     Northampton 0.3734309 0.26558364 0.36098543
7   Salford City   Bradford City 0.4151681 0.24203398 0.34279794
7        Walsall  Mansfield Town 0.2752443 0.29040866 0.43434703
7   Swindon Town       Port Vale 0.3844762 0.36360530 0.25191849
7  Leyton Orient Oldham Athletic 0.8816356 0.08977042 0.02859397
7  Sutton United       Stevenage 0.2438464 0.28356433 0.47258927
7   Crawley Town Carlisle United 0.1545770 0.25975977 0.58566326
7 Scunthorpe Utd     Exeter City 0.1737945 0.38807100 0.43813449
7       Rochdale Tranmere Rovers 0.3669877 0.46331830 0.16969396

Leyton Orient, Harrogate and Hartlepool United have the highest win probabilities going into Week 7. I’ll keep an eye on the scores and see how the models perform this week.