The English football season isn’t over until May, but you can bet your bottom dollar that Chelsea will finish top of the table.
That’s according to a leading football simulator, which is predicting that Jose Mourinho’s team will pip defending champions Manchester City to the Premier League title.
Football Manager is a computer game which allows players to take control of their favorite team.
Using the game’s encyclopaedic database, which contains data on nearly a quarter of a million players from around the world, its makers have simulated the remaining matches of the 2014-15 campaign.
This included factoring in the various injuries and suspensions EPL teams have picked up since the game’s initial release in November last year.
And it’s Chelsea who emerged victorious, finishing three points clear of defending champions City in second place.
Manchester United, under the guidance of Louis van Gaal, came in third ahead of Liverpool in fourth.
This would spell disaster for Arsenal, who finished fifth in the fantasy table. If replicated in real life, it would Arsene Wenger’s team missing out on Champions League football for the first time in 18 years — unless of course the London side win Europe’s premier competition.
Arsenal faces Monaco in the last 16 next month with Chelsea and Manchester City also reaching the knockout stage.
Despite their early season promise, and despite sitting pretty in third place in the actual league table, Southampton’s charge up the table will stutter and end in a seventh-place finish, according to the game’s manufacturers Sports Interactive.
However, there is better news for City when the January transfer window is factored into the equation, a period during the season when European clubs can add to their rosters.
The Football Manager team ran a second simulation which included speculated transfer targets for each team and in this version of the league it’s City who take the title from Chelsea on goal difference.