The week the crowd changed its mind

One sleep left. Here's what the data says the crowd did with its final week.

No movement in the fixture model this week - and that's the honest note to start on: until three rounds are played it runs on pre-season priors, so treat this as the starting map. What it shows: Arsenal open with the kindest six in the league (2.0 average), Newcastle next at 2.17, then a Chelsea, Palace and Liverpool trio at 2.33. The short straw stays with Bournemouth (3.33), Spurs (3.0) and Fulham (2.83). Real xG takes over around GW4 - that's when this map starts earning its keep.

My fixture model - built on team strength, not the official FDR - hands Arsenal the kindest opening six (2.0 difficulty average), with Newcastle (2.17) and a Chelsea/Palace/Liverpool trio (2.33) close behind.

The short straw goes to Bournemouth: 3.33, the hardest opening run in the league, with Spurs (3.0) and Fulham (2.83) next. Among the promoted sides, only Hull make the ugly end of the table (2.83) - Coventry and Ipswich land mid-pack, a welcome you can at least breathe in.

One honest footnote: until roughly GW4 this model runs on pre-season priors. Once real xG data lands, it starts thinking for itself - and the first disagreements between my numbers and the official difficulty ratings should be worth the ticket alone.

The market read the same map - then watched Sunday's Community Shield confirm it. Calafiori scored against Man City after 23 seconds, Arsenal won 3-0, and the crowd did the maths: the two most-owned defenders in the game are now both Arsenal's - Calafiori (31.0%, £5.5m) and Gabriel (29.4%, £8.0m) - with Raya leading all keepers at 35.8%. The kindest run, bought three ways. Even Tzolis (18.5%, two assists in Cardiff) made the top three among genuine summer signings.

Up front, the week's biggest story: Haaland slid from 78.3% to 69.5% ownership while João Pedro surged 51.2% → 61.6%. An £8m gap between them, and the crowd spent deadline week deciding the cheaper one is the play. The premium-forward consensus that looked settled a week ago suddenly isn't.

Prices don't change until the season starts - but ownership never sleeps, and our daily snapshots caught the crowd reversing on last week's darlings. Bruno Guimarães: 11.6% → 8.5%. He started in Cardiff, won 3-0 - and lost a quarter of his owners anyway. The crowd bought the goalscorer next to him, not the £75m midfielder. Ownership follows returns, not reputations. Same story at Chelsea: Rogers faded 33.4% → 26.1%. The beneficiary? Mbeumo, up 25.0% → 33.3% and suddenly the third-most-owned midfielder in the game.

One week, three reversals. The template is written in pencil - we just happen to photograph it every morning.

Deadline's tomorrow at 18:30 UK. The guessing ends; the grading begins.

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