All 8 leagues are now back online
After taking an extended a break in the first half of this season, the alt-3 league tables are now updated daily for all of the usual 8 leagues: Premier L...
The alt-3 blog
All posts. Most recent appears first.
(Or: sort blog posts by category instead.)
#2024
#2023
Taking a break this season
After 6 years of making and updating the alt-3 tables, I am taking a break from it in order to focus on other projects. There will be no alt-3 tables in the...
#2021
A home match against West Ham is harder than playing Chelsea or Liverpool away?
The current alt-3 table for the Premier League has Chelsea, West Ham United and Manchester City in the top 3 places. While West Ham and City are level on ...
An alt-3 table is not a prediction!
On April 19th I made a blog post under the heading Serie A: Napoli and Benevento doing better than the official table shows. At that time, the alt-3 table h...
Disappearance of home advantage this season?
I have become quite fond of the “rates diamond” graph that I developed in order to compare teams’ home and away points rates. Below are the final diamonds f...
Wednesday problem is fixed
When I looked last night at the Championship table I realised that — in my rush to get alt-3 back online in the last few days — I had forgotten to include t...
Serie A: Napoli and Benevento doing better than the official table shows
From yesterday’s blog post: This coming Tuesday (April 20th) I’ll be giving a Zoom talk about all this, in the statistics seminar series of Ca’ Foscari U...
Home/away points rates compared between 2019–20 season and 2020–21 so far
Over on Twitter, I just got asked about the comparison between this season’s “rates diamond” graph and the corresponding graph for (the whole of) last season...
Premier League: Liverpool are ahead of Chelsea at present
Now that alt-3 is back up and running for the 2020–21 season, let’s take a quick look at the current Premier League table. In general, there’s not much to t...
The alt-3 tables are back!
After a long wait, alt-3 is back. For now it’s only England’s Premier League and Championship and Italy’s Serie A that are given the alt-3 treatment for t...
#2020
Could alt-3 help decide who wins the league?
I never thought I’d be asking this question. But the coronavirus pandemic seems to be making all of us think a bit differently at present. A friend of mine...
West Ham have effectively 3 games in hand at present
Here is a snapshot of how the battle to avoid relegation looks currently, in the alt-3 Premier League table: While West Ham are in 18th place in the o...
Three new leagues added: Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga
Three new league tables have been added to the alt-3 website this week: Germany: Bundesliga 1 Italy: Serie A Spain: La Liga Primera I will do my be...
#2019
A couple of Championship highlights
The alt-3 EFL Championship table appeared for the first time this week. I hope people will enjoy it! The strength of competition in the Championship keep...
EFL Championship now added to alt-3.uk
The alt-3 EFL Championship table appears here for the first time this week. Over the next few weeks I plan to add other major leagues from across Europe. ...
Premier League after 100 matches. Man City not really 2nd but 4th. And Southampton just need to hold their nerve?
We’re now 10 weeks into the Premier League season. Just over a quarter (100 out of 380) of the season’s matches have now been played. This is the point at ...
First alt-3 Premier League table of the new season: Saints on the march!
We’re 5 matches in, and the first alt-3 league table of the season is now online. With Liverpool so far ahead already, all the action in this first alt-3 ta...
José Mourinho and the F word: Liverpool still just ahead of City though
Back in March 2014, when Chelsea topped the table on points but had played more matches than all of their nearest rivals, José Mourinho famously called the P...
#2018
A look ahead to the second half of the Premier League season
At around this time last season, I was able to write about some fairly surprising schedule-strength imbalance, even at the season’s halfway point. In my ...
Premier League after 12: Bournemouth and Chelsea have had it easy so far; West Ham and Wolves much less so.
The current alt-3 table shows the “real” Premier League standings after making proper adjustment for schedule strength (the mathematically coherent meas...
New format for alt-3 league tables
Today’s alt-3 Premier League table is the first one to be presented in a re-designed format. The table itself (i.e., the ordering of teams) is unchanged, as...
West Ham’s tough start; and Liverpool doing even better than City?
Here it is: the first public appearance this season of the alt-3 table. The main stories so far to come from the alt-3 calculation are: West Ham hav...
First alt-3 table of the new season to appear October 2nd
Update 2018-10-06: I’m going to postpone the release of a new, improved way of showing the alt-3 table, for another few days at least. (I still have some...
Some of the stories from the 2017–18 Premier League season
With the 2017–18 Premier League season now all finished, the alt-3 table shows perfect agreement with the official league table — exactly as it should do, by...
M23 derby match a ‘must win’ for Brighton?
Every Premier League team now has either 5 or 6 matches remaining this season. The alt-3 league table takes proper account of games in hand — as well as the...
Liverpool still above Spurs; and Southampton firmly in the relegation zone
Just 8 matchdays left now in this season’s Premier League. Most clubs will play 4 at home and 4 away in the remaining weeks, so the schedule-strength imbala...
Chelsea still within striking distance of 4th place
Although most of the current interest in the alt-3 league table relates to the relegation battle, there’s also a nice side-note to make about the contest fo...
Premier League relegation battle with 9 to play
It’s that time of year again, when the remaining fixtures of bottom-half clubs come under close scrutiny. The unique alt-3 methodology comes into its own at...
Chelsea lose their grip on a top-4 position
After last night’s defeat to Watford, Chelsea are now just one point ahead of Tottenham Hotspur in the official Premier League table. When schedule strength ...
Liverpool clear 3rd — two points better than Chelsea
This is still a fairly quiet part of the season for the alt-3 league table, but some schedule-strength differences are starting to emerge again after Decembe...
Liverpool now clear 4th; and Huddersfield pulling clear of the relegation scrap?
As I mentioned in the blog a few weeks ago, for the alt-3 league table this time of year is almost certain to be relatively uninteresting! We are only just ...
#2017
Arsenal doing better than Spurs in the 4-way scrap for 4th place
Of the four clubs vying currently for 4th place in the Premier league, Arsenal have had the toughest fixture list to date, and Tottenham Hotspur have had the...
West Brom now definitely in a relegation battle
West Ham’s win over Chelsea today, coupled with West Brom’s defeat to fellow strugglers Swansea, leaves the two clubs level on 13 points in the official lea...
United now firmly in second place — and red stripes tangle in mid table
Manchester United’s win at Arsenal, following hot on the heels of their equally impressive win at Watford, establishes United firmly in second place, now cl...
Chelsea still narrowly ahead of United — but not close to City at the top
Manchester United’s win yesterday at Watford — a relatively tough away trip for any club this season — brings them closer to Chelsea in the current alt-3 l...
Chelsea and Arsenal both now doing better than Man Utd
This weekend’s fixtures saw the completion of the 13th round of Premier League matches. A notable feature of the alt-3 league table right now is that Chel...
AFC Bournemouth are currently a top-half team
There were no surprises in this weekend’s round of Premier League matches. But I just realised that my last two blog posts featured Bournemouth — so let’s g...
Grueltide for Cherries (and happy new year?) — but Santa will visit Magpies, Saints and Swans
Christmas comes but once a year…and so does the half-way point of a football league season. This year, if all Premier League fixtures go ahead as planned, ...
Bournemouth doing better than their 10 points might suggest
Bournemouth’s stunning win at St James’s Park yesterday lifts them above Southampton, West Brom and Newcastle to 14th place in the alt-3 league table. Bourn...
Chelsea move ahead of United and Spurs, into 2nd place
After today’s win over Manchester United, Chelsea move up to second place in the alt-3 league table. Why? Because Chelsea face a relatively easy run of fix...
New look for the alt-3 table today
In response to various suggestions that people have made, I have today overhauled the appearance of the alt-3 league table. I hope it’s better (I think it ...
Everton and Southampton doing equally badly
Burnley’s win over Newcastle lifts Burnley to 7th, above Watford, in both the ‘official’ league table and also the alt-3 league table. Keen-eyed visitors to...
City and United pull clear at the top — and Everton really are now showing relegation form
This weekend’s Premier League results saw Man U beat Spurs, which puts United firmly back in 2nd spot in the alt-3 league table. Spurs, who had been ranked...
Spurs clearly ahead of Man U now — never mind the goal difference
This weekend Manchester United lost at Huddersfield, while Tottenham Hotspur beat Liverpool. That puts Man Utd and Spurs level on points now, with Man Utd ...
Everton (again — still!) not doing as badly as their points total suggests
Everton have just lost at home against Arsenal. The normal league table now puts them in 18th place, behind Stoke on goal difference. There are predictable c...
What a day! Huddersfield’s stunning win shakes up the table
Huddersfield Town jump to 12th place in the alt-3 league table after their victory over Manchester United. Now it’s Newcastle, and especially Southampton,...
Liverpool
In yesterday’s blog post I forgot to mention that Liverpool are like Stoke and Everton, in that the current alt-3 league table gives them quite a boost. A ...
Premier league after 8 matches: Huddersfield Town already showing relegation form?
With only Leicester vs West Brom still to play in this season’s 8th round of Premier League matches, the alt-3 league table now lifts Stoke City along with E...
Premier league after 6 matches: Everton up to 9th in the alt-3 table.
The weekend’s results see Everton climb still further in the alt-3 league table, which takes full account of the strength of opponents that each team has f...
Premier league after 5 matches: Everton not really showing relegation form (yet!)
The match schedules faced so far by Everton and West Ham this season are such that we should not rush to condemn their early form. Both clubs climb clear of...
It’s all kicking off…
We’re online at last! I have just posted the first of many regular alt-3 league tables. Right now it’s only the English Premier League that’s covered, but...
Presentation at NESSiS this weekend
Really excited to be speaking at this year’s New England Symposium on Statistics in Sports this weekend. It’s a chance to get some good feedback on the al...
Welcome to alt-3.uk
At alt-3.uk we compute better league tables, for some of the most prominent European football (soccer) leagues. This all comes out of some neat mathematics...