After a largely uneventful FA Cup weekend (Oxford beating Swansea excluded), what better time to take a look at the half-term report of the Premier League so far and assess what to expect from now until May?

OK, so it’s not quite the half-term report as we’re 20 games into the 38 for the season, but still it’s as good a point as any to find out exactly which teams have been over-performing and under-performing this term so far.

The table below shows the current Premier League standing and the Spreadex pre-season Team Points predictions and current , therefore giving a rating as to which teams are performing above and below expectations – and by how much.



If the league table was based on how teams have performed above and below their pre-season Spreadex Points prediction, the top five would be Leicester, Watford, Crystal Palace, West Ham and Spurs while the bottom five would be Chelsea, Villa, Manchester United, Sunderland and Swansea – only United from those latter five have not sacked their manager this season. Yet.

Leicester have been the obvious outstanding performers and the good news for spread betters who bought Leicester Points at the start of the season is that their current haul of 40 is already within the pre-season spread of 39.5 – 41.

So throughout the rest of the campaign, every point Claudio Ranieri’s side gain above 41 from now on will be earning money to those smart punters who got on the Foxes at that level.

Sellers of course will be feeling the squeeze as their pre-season bet at 39.5 would already be offside and to close out now at the current buy price of 65 would mean a painful 25.5 times their stake loss.

The other big outlier is Chelsea who have been just as spectacular in their inadequacy as Leicester have in their brilliance. Sellers of the Champions’ points at 82 at the start of the season may in all likelihood only ever have anticipated small gains when making their bet.

However, they could now close out for a monstrous gain of 24 times their original stake. Or of course they could choose to keep the bet running in the hope that the Blues fail to gain a further 24 points from their remaining 18 games as predicted by the Spreadex traders.

Of the remaining teams, Stoke, Bournemouth and West Brom have been performing very slightly above expectations and Everton very slightly below.

Man City and Southampton have been underachieving slightly more than the Toffees with the difference between the mid-point of their pre-season points quotes and current points quotes at -4.5 and -6.5.

So what can we expect until the end of the season? Well the Spreadex Points quotes have Arsenal just a tad ahead of Man City suggesting a thrilling finale in the battle for the title come May while our traders have Leicester and Man United neck and neck for a top four (and Champions League place) finish behind Spurs.

At the bottom, the Spreadex traders can’t see past the current bottom three of Newcastle, Sunderland and Aston Villa when it comes to relegation.