Stat, Viz, Quiz is the Opta Analyst football newsletter. This week’s edition looks at the Community Shield, Jack Grealish, and the Opta supercomputer.
A meaningful trophy or a glorified friendly?
We all know the answer to that question when it comes to the Community Shield depends on whether your team wins or loses, so let’s ask a more pertinent question. Does winning or losing matter when it comes to a team’s prospects for the next 10 months?
Crystal Palace followed up their first ever FA Cup win in May by beating Liverpool on penalties to lift the Community Shield in the proverbial curtain-raiser to the new season. In this week’s SVQ, we’ll look at what the data suggests it might mean for both teams ahead of the 2025-26 campaign.
With a few more weeks still left of the transfer window, there’s plenty of time to be surprised by players moving clubs. Few deals have raised eyebrows as much as Jack Grealish signing for Everton on loan. We’ll dig into the Manchester City man’s numbers to see what he might bring to the Hill Dickinson Stadium.
This week’s quiz is all about the opening day of the Premier League season, while we answer an Ask Opta question about the Opta supercomputer.
If you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe below for free to receive SVQ every Tuesday.
Country* Select A Country Canada United States of America United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Afghanistan Åland Islands Albania American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia (Plurinational State of) Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory United States Minor Outlying Islands Virgin Islands (British) Virgin Islands (U.S.) Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cabo Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Congo (Democratic Republic of the) Cook Islands Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and McDonald Islands Holy See Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran (Islamic Republic of) Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People’s Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia (the former Yugoslav Republic of) Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia (Federated States of) Moldova (Republic of) Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of) Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestine, State of Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Republic of Kosovo Réunion Romania Rwanda Saint Barthélemy Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Martin (French part) Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten (Dutch part) Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Korea (Republic of) South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suricontent Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland United States of America Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) Viet Nam Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Email* I agree to receive emails from Opta Analyst. See our Privacy Policy for more details.STAT – Community Shield Curse?
It was a good game between Crystal Palace and Liverpool at Wembley on Sunday, which is somewhat unusual for the Community Shield.
Liverpool’s new players looked sharp, with Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitiké combining for the latter to open his Reds account with a fine finish, before Ismaïla Sarr won a penalty at the other end, allowing Jean-Philippe Mateta to equalise from the spot.
Jeremie Frimpong joined Ekitiké in scoring on his debut from what was likely a mis-hit cross, but Sarr equalised with just over 10 minutes remaining to send the game to penalties. It was the third year in a row that the Community Shield has been drawn and decided with a penalty shootout, and the sixth time in the last nine years.
Perhaps neither team had practised penalties in pre-season as they were far from great, but ultimately it was Palace who prevailed, with Justin Devenny scoring the winning spot-kick.
Does it mean anything, though?
It certainly did for Palace, who won the Community Shield in their first appearance ever in the game, with another trophy to sit proudly next to their FA Cup success a few months ago.
However, we’re afraid their victory is likely to dampen any talk of a title challenge at Selhurst Park.
As we pointed out in our article on Community Shield winners last week, across the 33 Community Shield matches in the Premier League era (1992-93 onwards), only eight winners of the trophy have gone on to lift the Premier League title later that season – less than a quarter of sides (24%).
In fact, none of the last five Community Shield winners have gone on to win the Premier League title in the same season, and just one of the last 14 have done so – Manchester City in 2018-19.
As for Liverpool, losing the game, if anything, suggests they are likelier to retain their Premier League crown.
Four of the last six teams to lose the Community Shield have gone on to win the Premier League that season: Liverpool in 2019-20 and Man City in 2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24. When City finally ended their three-game losing run in the Community Shield with their penalty-shootout victory over rivals Manchester United last season, they failed to win the Premier League title.
It should of course also be pointed out that United lost last season’s game on penalties and went on to have their worst campaign in Premier League history by some distance, though you’d admittedly get pretty good odds on Liverpool finishing 15th this season.
Whether you put faith in the outcome of the Community Shield or not, that it was an exciting game for the neutral hopefully bodes well for the 2025-26 Premier League campaign, which gets under way on Friday when Liverpool host Bournemouth.
There will be no questions about whether that game matters.
VIZ – Grealish the Toffee?
Jack Grealish has been a bit of a forgotten man in recent times.
His performances for Aston Villa earned him a £100 million move to Man City in 2021, where he has won three Premier League titles, an FA Cup, a UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup. Grealish has 17 goals and 23 assists in 157 appearances in all competitions for City.
However, in his four seasons at the Etihad Stadium, he has only once managed to reach 40 appearances, which was the tremendously successful treble campaign in 2022-23.
Last season, Grealish played just over 1,500 minutes for Pep Guardiola’s side, and ahead of a World Cup year, will be eager to feature more often. That could explain why he has agreed to join Everton on a season-long loan.
The enigmatic attacking midfielder with calves that could crack a walnut could be exactly what the Toffees need, too.
At his best, Grealish is one of the most creative players around; in that treble-winning season in 2022-23, only Kevin De Bruyne (137) created more chances for City than his 93.
In fact, although he didn’t play as often last season, it was Grealish’s best ever campaign in terms of open-play chances created per 90 minutes (3.1).
By comparison, Jack Harrison created the most open-play chances of any Everton player in the Premier League last season with 27. That was the second lowest total for a top open-play chance creator at a Premier League club in 2024-25 (only better than Southampton’s), and Grealish himself created just four fewer OP chances in just 715 minutes.
Only looking at open-play chances per 90 in the Premier League, Grealish (2.9) had almost double that of the best Everton player (Charly Alcaraz – 1.5) to play a minimum of 50 minutes last season.
Will Grealish be a success on the blue half of Merseyside? It feels like a statement signing to get fans excited ahead of their first season in a brand-new stadium.
It is a shame he didn’t sign a year earlier, though, as the alliteration of ‘Grealish Goes to Goodison’ would have made for a better headline… ah well.
QUIZ – On Your Marks…
Ahead of the first weekend of the new Premier League season, we ask five questions about opening days of years past. Answers at the bottom of the page.
1. Who is the only player to score a hat-trick on his debut on Matchday 1 of a Premier League season?
2. Not including the answer to question one, four more players have recorded three goal involvements on their first ever Premier League appearance on MD1 of a new season. Can you name any of them?
3. Who was the last player to score a hat-trick on MD1 of a Premier League season?
4. Two players were sent off on MD1 in the Premier League last season. Can you name either of them?
5. What is the most goals that have been scored in a Premier League opening-day game?
Ask Opta
This week’s question comes from @PhilbySpeaks, who asks: “Really enjoyed the Supercomputer’s PL predictions for 2025–26. Would love to hear more about the methodology behind it — esp. how match probabilities & simulations are modelled.”
Do you have a stat-based question you’d like Opta to answer in a future edition of SVQ? Email us at editors@theanalyst.com or message us on X @OptaAnalyst with #AskOpta and we’ll pick the best one.
Answer:
We’re glad you enjoyed the Opta supercomputer’s predictions for the new season.
As for how its all calculated, we’re sure you’ll appreciate that if we revealed all the secrets of the supercomputer, it would lose all its magic and lustre, and then anyone with supercomputer-building equipment, a dream and a lot of spare time would be able to make their own.
However, we can reveal that outcomes of match probabilities are calculated using betting market odds alongside the Opta Power Rankings, which are influenced by both historical and recent results, weighted more depending on the strength of the opponent. So, for example, when Chelsea beat PSG in the Club World Cup final, they were awarded a lot of points in the Power Rankings due to PSG’s status as the best team in the world on the day of the final. PSG subsequently dropped to third.
That therefore means that the supercomputer looks at Chelsea as a bigger threat than it did before and takes that and plenty of other results into account when estimating that they will finish fourth this season in the Premier League.
The model simulates fixtures in the competition thousands of times. By analysing the outcome of each of these simulations, the model can see how often teams finished in each league position to create our final predictions.
It is never of course to say that what the supercomputer says is actually going to happen, just that it’s statistically the likeliest outcome. Football is wonderfully unpredictable like that.
For example, it said Liverpool would win the Premier League in just 5.1% of scenarios last summer, but that doesn’t mean it was wrong to say so. It just so happens that the real-life scenario matched one of those 5.1% of occasions.
Keep visiting Opta Analyst to see the latest supercomputer projections as the new season goes on.
What Are We Up to at Opta Analyst?
Here’s some of our latest data-driven offerings:
Related Posts
Premier LeagueLiverpool 2025-26 Preview: Five Key Questions Ahead of the New Season
8 hours ago David Segar Premier LeagueMan Utd 2025-26 Preview: Five Key Questions Ahead of the New Season
22 hours ago Ryan Benson Premier LeagueArsenal 2025-26 Preview: Five Key Questions Ahead of the New Season
22 hours ago Ali TweedaleQuiz Answers
1. Who is the only player to score a hat-trick on his debut on Matchday 1 of a Premier League season?
Fabrizio Ravanelli (Middlesbrough vs Liverpool in 1996-97)
2. Not including the answer to question one, four more players have recorded three goal involvements on their first ever Premier League appearance on MD1 of a new season. Can you name any of them?
Alen Boksic (Middlesbrough vs Coventry City in 2000-01), Sergio Agüero (Man City vs Swansea City in 2011-12), Mladen Petric (Fulham vs Norwich City in 2012-13) and Michu (Swansea vs QPR in 2012-13)
3. Who was the last player to score a hat-trick on MD1 of a Premier League season?
Bruno Fernandes vs Leeds United in 2021-22
4. Two players were sent off on MD1 in the Premier League last season. Can you name either of them?
Ashley Young and Fabian Schär
5. What is the most goals that have been scored in a Premier League opening-day game?
Seven, which has occurred in seven different games, most recently when Liverpool beat Leeds 4-3 in 2020-21
Before You Go…
Enjoying Stat, Viz, Quiz? Think it needs improvement? Send us your feedback to editorial@theanalyst.com.
Why Losing the Community Shield Could Be Good News for Liverpool Opta Analyst.
Hence then, the article about why losing the community shield could be good news for liverpool was published today ( ) and is available on The Analyst ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Why Losing the Community Shield Could Be Good News for Liverpool )
Also on site :