Though I hadn’t planned on posting a prediction for the new Allsvenskan season until a couple of rounds had been played, after seeing Per Linde of fotbollssiffror posting his prediction on twitter and mentioning how he disagreed with it, I decided to do the same and fire up my league table prediction script from least season.

My Monte Carlo game prediction is designed to use at least a couple of rounds of data, so I was unsure how it would go about predicting a new season right from scratch, but I actually think it turned out better than expected:

There are some obvious problems though. First off, the script still thinks it’s 2015 and Jönköpings Södra and Östersund are playing in Superettan, causing some strange error where their every game is simulated as a 0-0 draw. This obviously skews the prediction for every team, but it isn’t really an error as the league simulation script isn’t designed to involve different leagues, and it’ll will be corrected when I update the database with the weekend’s results.

Also, every game is simulated with the teams’ squads as they were at the end of the 2015 season which is obviously a problem, with a lot of players coming and going since then – but again this will be fine once I update the database.

What about the actual prediction then? Besides the error with the promoted teams the only problem I have subjectively is the high percentages for Gefle’s relegation (they’ve been ruled out as long as I can remember but have still managed to stay up year after year) and Norrköping’s title defence. I’d also switch places between Djurgården and Häcken while placing Örebro somewhere in lower mid-table. The promoted sides are hard to predict, but I definitely place Östersund above Jönköpings Södra.

Though I’m pretty happy with the prediction, I’ll update it in another post once a couple of rounds have been played.