The relegation battle, title race and battles for Europe are entering crunch time. Some of these fights involve teams you’d never expect to be there. Spurs have one of the best stadiums in world football, but somehow find themselves scrapping at the bottom. So I’ve used Football Manager 26 to see how all these key battles play out.
I used FM Scout’s real fixtures and results to get an accurate table (it’s a bit off, but I account for that in the simulations, I’ll elaborate in a second) and then simulated the rest of the season 10 times. The results I got were fascinating, and might give an indication of what to expect before May.
Starting table
The starting table is slightly off because it was only updated on the 8th of February, but I’ve accounted for that.
Here is the starting table:
To make sure it aligns accurately with real life, at the end of each simulation I made the following adjustments for each team (each number corresponds to whether they got more or less points, or if there were no changes):
| Team | Value |
| Bournemouth | +3 |
| Chelsea | +3 |
| West Ham | +3 |
| Brentford | +2 |
| Man Utd | +2 |
| Newcastle | +2 |
| Everton | +1 |
| Burnley | 0 |
| Forest | 0 |
| Leeds | 0 |
| Liverpool | 0 |
| Man City | 0 |
| Palace | 0 |
| Arsenal | -1 |
| Fulham | -1 |
| Sunderland | -1 |
| Aston Villa | -2 |
| Brighton | -3 |
| Wolves | -3 |
| Spurs | -4 |
Right, now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s dive into the results. Warning: it gets stat-heavy, which the FM purists will love.
The Title Race
Arsenal won the league 70% of the time, whilst Man City won the league 30% of the time. Unsurprisingly, no other team got close to these two. Arsenal averaged 82.4 points (range 78–89), whilst Man City averaged 78.9 points, with the typical gap being 3.5 points. So, according to FM, the title race is definitely favoured towards Arsenal, but it will most likely be relatively close.
The Race For Europe
These teams are locked in for the UCL (top five every time):
- Arsenal
- Man City
- Liverpool (best of the rest: 80% 3rd, 20% 4th)
- Aston Villa (50% 4th, 50% 5th)
The main scrap is between Man Utd vs Chelsea vs Newcastle. Man Utd get UCL 60% of the time, Europa 30%, and Conference League 10% of the time (average points = 62.3, range = 55–70).
Chelsea get UCL 40% of the time, Europa League 30% of the time, and Conference League 10% of the time, qualifying for nothing 20% of the time (average points = 60.5, range = 49–68). Newcastle are more settled and less chaotic. They get Europa 70% of the time, Conference League 20% of the time, and no Europe 10% of the time (average points = 57.6, range = 53–63).
The one surprise team to get Europe was Bournemouth. They manage a huge uptick, making the Europa League 30% of the time, the Conference League 30% of the time, and not qualifying 40% of the time (average points = 54.4, range = 50–60).
Other clubs that occasionally popped up:
- Everton = 20% Europa League
- Sunderland = 10% Europa League + 10% Conference League
- Brentford = 10% Europa League
- Spurs = 10% Conference League
- Brighton = 10% Conference League
Relegation Probabilities
It won’t come as any shock to you that Wolves and Burnley are relegated 100% of the time. Wolves come 20th 90% of the time, with 10% 19th-place finishes. They average 19 points and even break Derby’s points record a couple of times.
Burnley finished 19th 80% of the time, with 10% 20th and 10% 18th, averaging a respectable (respectable for a relegation battle) 30.5 points.
It’s a rough time for West Ham. They’re relegated 80% of the time, finishing 18th most often. They average 35.7 points, which would be enough in most other seasons.
The only other team that gets relegated is Nottingham Forest, who go down 20% of the time and average 40.6 points. Good reading for Leeds United fans.
Most volatile teams
These are the teams with the biggest position swings across the simulations:
- Chelsea: 3rd–12th
- Spurs: 8th–17th
- Brighton: 8th–17th
- Brentford: 6th–14th
- Sunderland: 7th–15th
Cup Winners
Champions League
- Real Madrid 30%
- Liverpool 30%
- Man City 20%
- PSG 20%
The one big shock in the Champions League winners is that Arsenal don’t win it once. Clearly Mikel Arteta is putting all his eggs into the Premier League basket in virtual reality.
FA Cup
- Liverpool 50%
- Man City 30%
- Arsenal 10%
- Aston Villa 10%
The usual suspects dominate the FA Cup. It’s hard to feel that Liverpool fans would be happy with a season with just an FA Cup win.
Europa League
- Roma 40%
- Bologna 20%
- Forest 10%
- Stuttgart 10%
- Celta Vigo 10%
- Porto 10%
Roma dominate the Europa League, but there’s healthy variation in the clubs that win it. You do wonder whether Forest fans would take relegation if they also won the Europa League. It’s also a shock that there are no wins for Lyon or Aston Villa.
Every team’s average points, position range and points range
| Team | Avg Pts | Pos Range | Pts Range |
| Arsenal | 82.4 | 1–2 | 78–89 |
| Man City | 78.9 | 1–2 | 70–85 |
| Liverpool | 69.9 | 3–4 | 64–76 |
| Aston Villa | 65.1 | 4–5 | 60–69 |
| Man Utd | 62.3 | 4–8 | 55–70 |
| Chelsea | 60.5 | 3–12 | 49–68 |
| Newcastle | 57.6 | 6–9 | 53–63 |
| Bournemouth | 54.4 | 6–12 | 50–60 |
| Brentford | 51.7 | 6–14 | 45–62 |
| Everton | 51.0 | 7–13 | 45–58 |
| Spurs | 50.2 | 8–17 | 35–56 |
| Sunderland | 50.2 | 7–15 | 43–57 |
| Brighton | 47.8 | 8–17 | 39–55 |
| Fulham | 45.5 | 13–17 | 39–49 |
| Palace | 44.9 | 11–16 | 38–51 |
| Leeds | 41.0 | 13–17 | 35–45 |
| Nottingham Forest | 40.6 | 12–18 | 34–50 |
| West Ham | 35.7 | 15–19 | 28–42 |
| Burnley | 30.5 | 18–20 | 21–36 |
| Wolves | 18.9 | 19–20 | 14–28 |
Conclusion
This will be amazing reading for Spurs fans and painful reading if you’re a West Ham fan. Wolves fans have no hope whatsoever, but at least this predicts you won’t go down in history as the team with the lowest points total ever, most of the time, anyway.
For Arsenal fans, it won’t be a stress-free ride, but Football Manager is still predicting you to get the job done overall.
If you want to see the result of every single simulation, you can do so here. Are you happy with what it’s predicted for your team? Let me know in the comment section!
