Latest Celtic prediction from fabled ‘supercomputer’ will not be happy reading for rival supporters

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You’ve all seen a ‘supercomputer’ headline before, haven’t you? They’re a favourite of the Scottish media.

It leads to visions of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey or Jarvis from the Marvel Cinematic Universe – an all-seeing sentient computer dishing out Scottish Premiership predictions all over the shop.

The reality is a little less exciting.

What it actually involves is FiveThirtyEight running 20,000 simulations from forecasts based on statistical data and a ‘Soccer Power Index’ (SPI).

As they explain themselves: “At the heart of our club soccer forecasts are FiveThirtyEight’s SPI ratings, which are our best estimate of a team’s overall strength. In our system, every team has an offensive rating that represents the number of goals it would be expected to score against an average team on a neutral field, and a defensive rating that represents the number of goals it would be expected to concede. These ratings, in turn, produce an overall SPI rating, which represents the percentage of available points — a win is worth 3 points, a tie worth 1 point, and a loss worth 0 points — the team would be expected to take if that match were played over and over again.”

Right now, their Scottish Premiership prediction table, based on this methodology and updated yesterday, makes for happy reading in the Celtic camp.

Remarkably, they think the Bhoys have a massive 77% chance of winning the league this season based on performances so far this term.

Their average simulated season from this point onwards puts Celtic onto 90 points in total by the end of May, with Rangers lagging behind on 86.

They give Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s team just a 23% of defending their title.

So while you may be fretting about the weeks to come, it seems the statisticians have it all plain sailing for the Bhoys.

Obviously, this is just a bit of fun. The title will be won on the pitch with hard work and skill, not on a computer.

The point is, if you’re feeling confident about Celtic right now, then you have every reason to be. We are favourites to lift the title right now and any other talk to contrary is simply talking the reality of our situation down.

Bring on the remaining seven games!

In other news, Report: Celtic given tiny ticket allocation for derby.