Leeds fell to a 3-1 defeat at home to Manchester City upon their return to league action after the World Cup break but followed the reverse with a goalless draw at Newcastle United on New Year’s Eve. Following the point at St James’ Park, the super computer at Five Thirty Eight had Leeds down for a 15th-placed finish on 41 points – with Wolves, Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest all predicted to go down.
Leeds then began 2023 with a 2-2 draw at home to West Ham United as part of a set of midweek games that also saw particularly big blows for Everton who were beaten 4-1 by visiting Brighton and Southampton who suffered a 1-0 defeat at home to Nottingham Forest.
Attention then turned to the FA Cup third round in which the Whites trailed 2-0 at Championship strugglers Cardiff City but fought back to salvage a 2-2 draw. League action is now back on the menu this weekend with a Friday night trip to Aston Villa who Five Thirty Eight’s super computer think will beat Marsch’s visiting Whites.
FiveThirtyEight crunch the numbers and use their Forecasts and Soccer Power Index (SPI) ratings to predict each round of matches and how the final Premier League table will look come next May. Leeds are given just a 26 per cent chance of leaving Villa Park with a victory whilst the draw is rated a probability of 24 per cent. Villa, who sit 11th, are given a 50 per cent chance of winning against a Leeds side currently sat 14th in the table but having played a game less than every other side in the bottom eight.
Leeds are now unbeaten in their last three games following Sunday’s draw at Cardiff but the Whites have taken just ten points from a possible 42 over their last 14 games, a run which puts them second bottom in the table over that period and only ahead of Southampton.
Ahead of this weekend’s games, the super computer has cast an altered prediction on where Leeds will finish the season and with how many points, plus a new view on how the title race will conclude. FiveThirtyEight had Arsenal down to win the league ahead of the first games of 2023. Here are their revised predictions.
