Football prediction results

[undyingking]

Back in August I invited people to predict which teams were going to finish as the top 5 in the Premiership. And they did!

This is what actually happened:

1. Man Utd
2. Chelsea
3. Liverpool
4. Arsenal
5. Spurs

So, the top two changed places, but otherwise the same as last year. These were the predictions:

dr_bob

1. Chelsea
2. Arsenal
3. Man Utd
4. Spurs
5. Liverpool

colonel_maxim

1. Arsenal
2. Liverpool
3. Chelsea
4. Man Utd
5. Spurs

mrlloyd (as he now is)

1. Chelsea
2. Liverpool
3. Arsenal
4. Spurs
5. Man Utd

undyingking

1. Chelsea
2. Liverpool
3. Arsenal
4. Man Utd
5. Spurs

So everyone got the right top 5... well, OK, maybe that was the easy part. According to the by-now-familiar undyingking's Rank Correlation Coefficient, that gives scores of (small is good):

• 1.67 dr_bob
• 2.00 colonel_maxim
• 2.00 mrlloyd
• 1.55 undyingking

Well done again dr_bob, the only one not to wildly underestimate Sir Alex's merry men. But let's hope that next year things get shaken up a bit more...

Comments

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

Okay, numbers are not my thing but how come dr_bob is top with 1.67 and two people below him have 2.00? Should dr_bob really have 2.67 or am I just displaying my ignorance of how the rank correlation works?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

"(small is good)" -- a small score indicates that you were less far from what actually happened.

[chrisvenus]

And being a sad mathematician I've even reverse engineered your rank correlation. And I'm not covinced its really yours though my memory is too hazy to say for sure. :)

[chrisvenus]

Oh no, yours differs from the one I was thinking of by some constants.
I think I was looking back at the Spearman rank coefficient which produces a number in the range -1 to 1. for just working out which ranks best though yours is teh win. :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about using Spearman's and also looked at Kendall's, but I didn't quite like either of them. I expect a statistician would scream in horror at mine, but hopefully none is reading this LJ ;-)

[chrisvenus]

Spearman's is pretty much the same as yours. If you'd divided by four and subtracted it from 1 I think you'd have had spearman's. If you are doing no further analysis than you did then this is suitable since the ordering will be the same as spearman, you just won't be able to do as useful things as saying -1 is revere related (ie opposite order, etc.

Oh, actually I think you square rooted as well didn't you. Ah well, the ranking is definitely the same anyway. :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

(And I put my own score at the foot of the table because I'm not really part of the competition.)

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

That was the part that really confused me.

I missed the 'small is good' though. If I didn't trust you I'd suspect you of having put it in later. But yes, I am teh stoopid.

[mrlloyd.livejournal.com]

My god I got that seriously wrong. Hey ho, I'm sure I'll get it right this year :-)